


Descent Into Folly

by Fishfootidentity



Series: A Drop In The Rain [1]
Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Torture, Canon-Typical Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, Dubious Consent, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Eventual teamwork, F/M, Gaslighting, Height Differences, Masturbation, Memory Suppression, Power Dynamics, Pre-entity, Protectiveness, Psychological Torture, Repressed attraction, Sexual Tension, Slow Build, Some Humor, Stockholm Syndrome, Surveillance, Unreliable Narrator, Vaginal Sex, Voyeurism, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:15:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22457833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fishfootidentity/pseuds/Fishfootidentity
Summary: Doctor Herman Carter is supposed to make the patients crack. One day, one of them subtly gives him doubts about his own sanity, prompts him with questions about his own place in the system. He is determined not to back down, no matter how friendly she acts toward him outside the interrogation.Over time, he finds more uses for that patient: to further his work, and to entertain him in his spare time.(Originally planned to be one-shot smut with pre-Entity!Herman Carter; turn out to have to split into chapters exploring his personality and frustrations. The explicitly sexual scenes are on chapters 4 and 10.)
Relationships: Herman Carter | The Doctor/Original Female Character(s)
Series: A Drop In The Rain [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149845
Comments: 29
Kudos: 46





	1. Novelty

**.....**

It’s time for Dr Herman Carter to choose a new patient.

Settling into his plush high-backed office chair, he puts on his reading glasses and scans the most recently updated register. The first two pages on the clipboard make up the short list. Herman sees the usual criminals and spies on the roster, charted according to descending threat levels, but one patient’s particulars piqued his interest.

**Patient 0561. F, 21**   
**Arrested for: Vandalism of private property and law enforcement vehicles**

Scrawled at the additional space in the patient’s entry:  
 **“Refuses to give names and information regarding collaborators”**

Herman went over the entry again. Female patients are rare enough at Léry’s Memorial Institute as it is, but this patient would be the youngest he has seen since the early-days volunteers stopped coming. Did the admin staff make a mistake, or did the United States government really see this 21-year-old as a threat to national security?

He hunted down Patient 0561’s complete case file and pulled it from the stack in the middle of his organised mess of a desk. According to the patient’s arrest report, she is a self-proclaimed anarchist who terrorised and vandalised parts of a financial district in a small town. True to the brief scrawl, she has refused to sell out her compatriots.

Skimming Patient 0561’s interview transcripts, he could just imagine the kind of crowd she spent time with. To back up his hypothesis, he listened to the patient’s most recently taped interviews. One line in particular, spoken with a deepened voice to make her sound masculine, made him smile.

**_“Oh, yeah? Take me to this Dr Carter’s lab. He can’t be any worse than Dufort or Moreau.”_ **

_A patient who has heard about what happens in my lab but accepts the decision without fear? Now_ that’s _a hint of insanity!_ Herman thought.

Herman called the orderlies’ station to ask Patient 0561 to be prepped with a standard dosage of anaesthesia. He will attend to her soon.

* * *

The petite young woman sat with partial rigidity in her treatment chair. The orderlies really tightened the restraints on her wrists and ankles, Herman noted with some disapproval. If parts of her nervous system are cut off, the pain won’t course through her whole body, as per his best practices. The tape recorder is on; Herman likes to revisit interviews with patients to pick up anything he might have missed.

Through the haze of sedation, Patient 0561 blinked twice. “You’re Dr Carter?” she asked.

Herman flashed his typical professional smile at her. “The one and only,” he announced.

Patient 0561’s eyes did not meet his, but instead wandered over his imposing stature. She shied away when he reached to readjust the straps – give her some wiggle room for when she spasms from the shock – but soon she relaxes.

Herman studies her as he loosens the right hand, left hand, left foot, and right foot restraints. With her brown eyes, short dark hair, and medium complexion, she could be from some part of Asia – East? South? North, even? Asia is a huge continent. However, her accent is perfectly American, or as American as news readers typically sound.

“The other staff here make you sound like a merciless interrogator. What I see is a handsome, healthy man who exemplifies proper doctor behaviour,” she said.

Herman stands up and turns away from the occupied treatment chair. He will not let her see him smile at her words. When he attended to a few of the older female patients at the Institute in the past, they either threw offensive slurs at him or made crude remarks. Well, that was before he turned up his machine to scrape the truth out of their narrow minds. It always ends the same way: the last of their living memory was of Herman Carter being a monster or a killer.

He checks the electrodes he will use today. The pads, conductors, wires, switches –the entire circuitry needs to be in order and up to the task. Patient 0561 might not have outwardly provoked him yet, but he needs to be ready for the moment she does.

Patient 0561 eyes the electrode pads and the wires connecting them to Herman’s main console in trepidation. Still, try as she may, she cannot move her head too far or too fast for the electrodes to stay on. It is physically impossible.

Herman cups the patient’s jaw in the firm grip of a singular hand, forcing her to look at him.

“For your own safety, I’d advise you not to dislodge these tools of your treatment. One little slip, and you might lose everything that makes up who you are,” he warned. “Do you understand?”

The patient draws in a deep breath and lets out a low sigh. Herman tightens his hold on the lower part of her soft little face.

“I can’t hear you,” he said in a low voice.

“Alright, alright!”

Herman releases Patient 0561’s jaw, checks the positioning of the electrodes again, and sits at the metal folded chair that half-faces his main console and where his patient is seated. It is tricky to make himself look relaxed in cheap, small standard-issue furniture, but Herman learned how to make it look effortless.

“You know who I am – and that’s good – but I’d like to know who _you_ are. That way, you’ll help me know what’s wrong with you, and how I can help make you better,” he spoke.

“I’d like to say there’s nothing wrong with me and instead there are some things really wrong with the world around me. But that just makes me sound crazy, doesn’t it?” Patient 0561 said to Herman’s shoes.

Herman lazily adjusts his machine to deliver low-current deep wavelength sparks (which he begins to call ‘Calm’) through the patient’s electrodes. She lets out a startled yelp and involuntarily digs her heels into the floor, as if she can run away from her predicament somehow. He waits for her to recover from the initial shock, be lucid enough to answer his questions.

“Let’s start with how you see the world. You’re 21 years old. Were you in college before you ended up here?”

“College,” Patient 0561 huffs derisively. She lets out some indistinct mumbles that might sound like “university”. At the sight of Herman reaching for his controls again, she straightens up and forces herself to make eye contact. “My files tell you I’m 21, but I’m actually a couple thousand years old,” she continues.

Herman responds with non-committal nods, writing brief notes on blank paper attached to his clipboard.

“You feel too old for this world,” he responds in understanding. “Typical symptom of a patient of clinical depression.”

Patient 0561 scoffs again. “If I were depressed, would I have thrown Molotov cocktails at millionaire protection rackets and cop cars?”

“Your actions are part of a larger pattern called self-destruction. Suicidal tendencies are indicative of depression as well,” Herman explains.

His patient looks away, leaning back. She might have been crossing her arms over her chest if her wrists hadn’t been bound to the arms of her treatment chair. _So much for being too old for this world_ , Herman muses.

He sports a bright smile. “Consider yourself lucky, Patient 0561! Electroconvulsive therapy is exactly what you need in your life, and I happen to specialise in the delivery of this treatment.”

Patient 0561 swallows what little water is in her mouth and gives no response. Apart from squeezing her eyes shut at the first shock, she has not displayed many facial expressions. Whether she has a pre-existing mental condition or she turns out to be well-versed in resistance to interrogation… that’s not relevant. Herman _will_ draw the necessary information out of her.

Time to try something else.

“Do you play chess?” he asks.

Her eyes snap toward his, brows tense with confusion.

“Why?” she asks in return.

Herman makes brisk work of setting up a chessboard atop a foldable table. Patient 0561 continues to look confused, her jaw slack and lips slightly parted. She self-consciously closes her mouth and casts her eyes down when Herman loosens and releases her wrist restraints. He can even see a hint of a blush on her cheeks, if he cared.

“Keep in mind that freedom of movement is a privilege – if you abuse that privilege, you might never see it again,” he said firmly.

Patient 0561 turns her attention to the board. Herman set up the white pieces on her side, which means she has the first move.

“Thank you.”

Interesting to note – her politeness is at odds with her conduct during police interviews. The only perceived rudeness Herman encounters is whenever she whispers curses at her important pieces being taken out. He’s not offended; if anything, it’s funny to hear “damn it” and “fuck” punctuating what was supposed to be a dignified game.

“I feel you could have put up more of a challenge,” Herman exclaims. “You do know how every piece is supposed to move.”

“Well, ex _cuse_ my poor performance, I’ve only just been kept awake for however many hours and not been fed in almost as long,” Patient 0561 sassed back.

Herman keeps his face neutral as the patient’s fingers reach for her face, under the pretext of rubbing her eyes. But Herman can see those fingers going for where the electrodes are placed.

“Do you remember what I said earlier about the importance of electrode placements being where they are, not to be altered unless you want to invert your entire sense of self?”

There is tightness in her jaw as she lowers her hands and places them in her lap.

“Back to the topic of your living conditions – what bothers you about your quarters? The fluorescent lights, the constant noise?”

“The lights, yes. The noise, not really. But let’s not forget the unnecessarily-cold air-conditioning.”

Herman forgot about the ongoing chess game. “You do not find the loud music and discordant sounds disturbing?” he asked.

“I mean, the amplitude is a bit uncomfortable, but I’ve listened to more terrifying music. Did my files mention I’m a Satanist?” the patient said with a small smile.

Herman is starting to see why the CIA co-signed Patient 0561’s transfer to this facility. Some religious conservative in a position of authority is eager to punish this patient for her sins.

“You’re not scared of me the way the other doctors were, are you? I doubt a tiny devil-worshipper like myself can disgust a broad-shouldered, brilliant man of science such as yourself.”

She gave him a compliment earlier in the treatment session, and she just gave him another one. The smile Herman responds with is strained.

This is no time for emotion to be involved. There should be nothing personal between doctor and patient. She is sick, she needs to be treated, but he cannot move forward with the treatment if she does not give him the information he needs.

What _did_ the government want from Patient 0561, anyway? Names and information about the other violent offenders she went on an anarchistic rampage with, he supposed. Was her group so experienced and well-hidden that the CIA became involved in extracting information from the one person the police managed to catch?

None of that is relevant. Herman must remember that his focus should be on his patient and the treatment needed.

He begins putting away the chess pieces and game board. Patient 0561 helped, sorting similar pieces closer to each other before Herman places them in the appropriate storage case.

“You are more well-mannered in my session as compared to those of previous doctors assigned to treat you here at Léry’s Memorial Institute. May I know why?” he asks, keeping a neutral tone.

“Because they’re dicks. They are the most entitled, sexist, hypocritical perverts I have ever had the displeasure of meeting in my short and boring life.”

Herman has trouble keeping a straight face then, hearing his colleagues described in such indecorous terms. Regardless, he picked up on the implications behind her words.

“So you behave better when the person treating you is not an entitled, sexist, hypocritical pervert.”

Patient 0561 raises her hands and shoulders in an exaggerated shrug, but lowers them just about as quickly.

“You are not like them.” Those five words are spoken with a weight to them.

There’s a good reason for that: she is right.

Herman puts away the foldable table and relocates his chair to where it normally should be. He approaches Patient 0561 again to place her wrists back in restraints. She gives no resistance – she actually leans into the touch of Herman’s hands.

_What a lonely being you are. Here lies your weakness._

In the CIA, there is no room for conscience. Good operatives always take advantage of openings; in Patient 0561’s case, it is her yearning for contact with a soul that understands hers.

Herman gives the electrodes on the patient’s head a final check, and then returns to his console. He lets the silence hang a little longer while he fills in further notes about this young patient. In the moments that pass, Patient 0561 takes the opportunity to close her eyes and rest her head and back.

A wicked smile pulls at Herman’s mouth.

_Sweet, sweet complacency. You’re going to regret that._

There is no way he could resist flipping a switch to deliver another blast of low-current Calm sparks straight to her brain. If she had not pressed her lips closed, the sound that came out of her might have borne resemblance to an angered cat.

“Don’t fall asleep just yet, 0561. I’m not done getting to know you.”

Once she is lucid again, she levels him with a humourless stare.

Herman Carter smiles. He is going to have fun picking this one apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I intended this plus Chapter 2 to be one-shot smut, but my muse got wild with a whole ’nother story. Heck, I had to stop the chapter here because it got drawn out too long.  
> By the way, Herman’s new Ascendance lore referred to a despised professor named Blanchard, which instantly reminds me of the name of a Leverage villain. Hence I used other Leverage villain names for the other doctors whose treatments Patient 0561 rejected.  
> November 2020: Small edits entered to make the formatting consistent. Italics for voice or internal dialogue; Bold indicating paper text or prior recording.


	2. Boundary

**.....**

Whether it was due to the Calm shocks from earlier or because the anaesthetics are starting to wear off, Patient 0561 is on high alert. She keeps looking over her shoulders and has to strain to keep herself from fidgeting.

Her attempts to resist the madness are endearing, so Herman thinks about adjusting his ECT machine to deliver Order shocks next.

But he hesitates, wondering if that is the move he wants to make. The Order wavelength and intensity often create confusion in his patients who receive that treatment. What he wants from Patient 0561 for now is clarity.

Ah, Herman knows. He checks his notes – there it is.

Restraint: a procedure involving a wavelength that links the patient’s and doctor’s minds. He happened upon that particular recipe while questioning a secretive saboteur. There was no need to make him squeal when Herman could just look inside his head.

This Class II procedure worked wonders then, and now there is a similar-enough situation that calls for it.

Herman picks up a light metal frame off a lower shelf near his ECT console. It is dome-shaped, with more than two electrodes protruding from along the inner sides of the frame. With practiced hands, he fits his specially-built ECT headgear on, attaching electrodes with certainty to his scalp and some parts of his face.

Patient 0561 blinks owlishly, staring at the unique contraption and the wires connecting it to the ECT machine. Herman can read the words on her face before she even says them.

“Now, people have told me that crazy can be contagious,” she speaks, “but _damn_ , you must’ve treated a whole lot of said crazies to come this far.”

Herman smiles at his tiny patient. Not the customary smile demanded of him by people who think themselves superior and therefore deserve this expression despite his daily suffering. No, this is Doctor Herman Carter’s true smile of morbid curiosity. Every facet of life is an experiment, and he is excited to see what comes out of it every time.

“Last chance to do things the easy way,” he warns her.

He glances at his patient in between adjusting the dials and meters on the machine console. Other than her initial puzzlement at his choice of treatment procedure, she showed no fear. Well, she does not yet know what could happen. Obliviousness is nowhere as entertaining as terror.

“I personally don’t believe it will work. And even if it does, you won’t find anything in my head,” Patient 0561 declares with a smile that does not reach her eyes.

Outside of this dreary place, some ordinary plebe would have laughed at the patient’s self-deprecating joke. In Carter’s lab, many other patients have pled ignorance; that tactic never works on him.

“You and I both know that is a lie,” Herman states. He then toggles the lever to ON.

Patient 0561 cries out from pain. Through his physical eyes, he sees her body seize once, twice. At the third time, her forearms jerk violently, leather restraints on the treatment chair leaving abrasion marks on the skin of her wrists.

Herman shuts his eyes, and he can see angry faces. Parents and teachers alike. Pasty bullies at school. Glimpses of an acceptance letter with a shield-and-four-books insignia at its head. Lecture halls, library trips, snowy walks. It is difficult to focus on any single fleeting trace of a memory, but Herman learned a few lessons from his last experience with the Restraint Class II procedure: memories are connected to feelings.

His questions light up in Patient 0561’s mind at the speed of thought. What is she feeling? Pain. What is hurting her, apart from the currents coursing through her body? Parents and peers who want her to conform to their disgusting expectations.

_Who are those peers?_ Herman urges through the connection.

The faces flashed by too quickly to pick out any distinguishing features. The clearest profiles he could see are when they were wearing masks and scarves to conceal their identities. This was when Patient 0561 and her anarchist comrades were about to vandalise private and state property.

Screams. Roaring fire. Police car sirens. Fists shooting out, soon held out of sight. Sound of handcuffs being locked.

Herman opens his eyes and flips the switch toward OFF, giving Patient 0561 and himself some breathing room. Obviously she needs it more than he does.

Patient 0561’s figure lies slumped in the chair, shoulders rising and falling, head hanging but eyes still open. That is good: it means she is still conscious, and she may answer his questions.

Herman quickly scribbles in notes of what he has seen in the shared mental connection: angry adults, disdainful women, and especially sleazy and demanding men. Even masked, their eyes show unabashed desire for the young woman in Dr Carter’s treatment chair.

“I-is that it?” Patient 0561 asks, her limbs and joints still twitching.

Jaws clenched, she raises her eyes to meet Herman’s. How adorable – she is still trying to put on a brave face.

“What do you mean by ‘it’?” Herman asks.

“Why everyone acted all spooked when they mention your name, Dr Carter,” Patient 0561 scoffs. “Here he is, the doctor who can deliver electroshocks and probably get inside your head. Oh, how scary.”

Herman almost gave in to the urge to flip the switch again, but he allows the sarcastic words to slide off of him. He knows when he is being toyed with. He can play this game, too; sooner or later, he will turn the tables against her.

He straightens up in his seat to face Patient 0561. “I suppose you are what they call a ‘tough customer’. You’re harder to impress than the average person on the street,” he speaks.

A hint of a smile, a little pull on the mouth, almost showed on the patient’s face.

“I must ask, then: what _would_ spook you, Patient 0561?”

In response to his question, she inhales and exhales through her nostrils, keeping her jaws clenched and lips sealed.

_Very well, then._

Herman adjusts the wavelength setting so that the connection can give him more to work with. This time, when he flips the switch, Patient 0561 prepares by curling up into her chair like a shrinking violet.

On this second round of Restraint, Herman is able to catch longer portions of each memory. A matriarch is scolding the viewer for – roughly translated – being “dressed like a whore”. Next, an uncaring father ignores the commotion as the matriarch hits the viewer with a rattan stick and screams demeaning words.

Fellow teenagers calling the viewer insulting words as the viewer hugs books to their chest, fists clenched and ready to defend themselves. Scarf ripped away from the viewer’s face, the nicotine-heavy smell of a police station, a common lockup. An unwashed man reaching for the viewer – the viewer swats his hand away, the man tries to punch the viewer. Adrenaline surges, and there was a flurry of movement before officers manage to peel the viewer away from a bruised and swelling creature.

The viewer is thrown into a solitary cell, and soon darkness surrounds them. The next thing the viewer sees is fluorescent lighting. The viewer’s small, yellow-brown hand reaches for a recognisable larger hand of a deeper complexion. But instead of putting a leather loop over the small hand, the larger hand reciprocates the viewer’s small hand clasping it with trust.

_Don’t you see, Dr Carter?_ The ghost of Patient 0561’s voice asked. _There’s nothing you can do to me that hurts more than what the world has already wrought upon me._

Herman opens his eyes and – wait, when did he stand up? His foldable chair had been knocked over. He was one step away from tautening the wires and ripping his headgear out, which could cause horrifying malfunctions.

In the lone occupied treatment chair, Patient 0561 looks more worn out than before, but her right hand is open and facing upward, as though she was reaching out… for Herman.

He cursed inwardly for letting his subconscious take hold of his body like that. _He_ was supposed to have control, not the patient!

“Heh,” Patient 0561 breathed out.

No, Herman won’t let this setback consume him. He moves carefully near his console, first re-righting his chair, and then jotting down everything he has seen from the clearer sharing of memories. Well, except the imaginary hand-holding part. Herman chalked that up to the patient “craving connection with someone who understands her”.

By the time Herman puts down his pen and clipboard-backed papers, Patient 0561 has gathered herself, and she meets Herman’s gaze with a cocky smile.

“I know I shouldn’t be picking on you like this, but – were you a _nerd_ , Dr Carter?”

Herman can feel the heat rush to his face, but inside him, there is no contempt, not like when groups of jocks were teasing him.

“I am, and always have been, passionate about my studies on the human mind,” he affirms, hoping he sounds as neutral and unfazed as possible. “Besides, the saying goes: ‘takes one to know one’, doesn’t it?”

Patient 0561 tried to raise her hands, but flinched from the leather loops sliding over her chafed skin. She settled for shrugging her shoulders instead.

“I _might_ have been a nerd if people saw me as more than my private parts,” she retorts. Now _there_ was contempt.

Herman detaches the headgear electrodes from his scalp while still listening to the patient. She may think there is a rapport established between patient and doctor, so he let her speak her mind.

“You saw it when you looked inside my head. Everything I’ve read, all the hours I put into my studies, and none of them would matter.”

When he looks at her again, there are tears in her eyes, although her face only showed resignation.

“I try to make a change in this unfair fucking world, and this is where I end up. Locked in an asylum by the CIA, to be tortured and killed by just another employee of the American government.”

Something in Herman seethed at Patient 0561’s words.

_“Just another employee of the American government,” you say? Oh, you wait right there, little lady. I’ll show you what I’m capable of –_ then _you can decide if I’m just another bootlicker like Doucheface Dufort or Bleeding-Heart Blanchard._

Patient 0561 made a small noise. When Herman looks at the young woman, she is staring at him with eyebrows raised, mouth slightly open.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks.

“You’re not connected to the machine, but I could hear your thoughts,” she said, wonder in her voice. She clears her throat and smiles, leaning back primly in the treatment chair as though she had been holding a polite conversation this entire time.

“For what it’s worth, I have faith in you, Dr Carter. You’re not like the others. If not for the status quo, you’d be the most intimidating and respected figure in your field.”

Herman glances at the tape recorder currently storing auditory details of the treatment. Yes, he records interviews with his patients to pick up on any useful information he might have missed – and sometimes for posterity. But what if some nosy rat goes through those tapes?

Well, Herman will just have to cover it up. That’s how everything works around here: held together by red tape and questionability.

He beams at Patient 0561.

“I suppose I neglected to mention that my Restraint procedure tends to cause mild cases of hallucination in the patient. I don’t know what you thought you heard, but we’ll have to conclude these mind games for now.”

Herman approaches the treatment chair, and when he places his right hand on Patient 0561’s left shoulder, he feels her body tense briefly. Was that leftover electric shock, or just her reaction to him?

She gazes up at Herman with those deep brown eyes of hers. “Will I be seeing you again?” she asks him softly.

What a deceptive being she is, looking all fragile when she has borne physical and emotional scars. Herman looks forward to being the one to inflict the mental scars to complete this patient’s collection.

“Do you miss me already?” he responds with a question of his own.

Patient 0561 levels him with a serious look. “You know what tends to happen to people like us. Can you live with the knowledge of what your so-called colleagues might do if _they_ were treating me?”

Herman lowers his hand and draws away, tidying up the main table in his lab and packing up his belongings.

There she goes again, hardened and skilled at emotional manipulation. She learned guilt-tripping from her mother, dubbed the Matriarch. On the other hand, Herman learned defence tactics from his father, specifically pretending the words do not affect him – when, on the inside, they certainly do. “People like us,” indeed.

He calls in the orderlies to take Patient 0561 back to her cell. Outside of her hearing range, he gives further instructions:

  1. The next time they strap 0561 or any other patient into a treatment chair, do not fasten the restraints too tightly. The patients need wiggle room for when they spasm from the shock, which should course through their entire body and not be cut off by numbness.
  2. Resume ongoing drug protocols as well as existing imprisonment conditions, but stop playing loud music. Hide a microphone in her cell so her words can be observed.
  3. From now on, Patient 0561 will be overseen by Dr Carter, and not anyone else at the Institute. If anyone but Carter harms 0561 in any way, they are interfering with his upcoming breakthrough (and could end up as his next patient if they do).



The orderlies visibly paled at his final instruction, and some of the guards must be ready to report Herman’s embedded threat to Agent Stamper. Well, it’s not like the man has time to listen to petty complaints about casually-thrown offensive words. These simpletons have no clue – the work, the knowledge, is what matters.

Somewhere in Léry’s Memorial Institute, he can feel 0561 agreeing with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hand-holding is scandalous, folks.  
> Thanks for reading the story so far. The next chapter may or may not be filler, but I have at least two more chapters planned after that, bringing this fic to a total of five... maybe.


	3. Full Command

**.....**

Writing the first official report on Patient 0561 takes longer than Herman would like it to. It has been challenging to put together a cohesive picture of what ails his patient, and how best to treat that ailment (so that she will give him the answers the CIA needs).

In the midst of summarising his assessment of the patient, curiosity nudges him to peek at older notes from her file. Separate sheets, prepared by Dr Carter’s predecessors and typewritten by the Institute secretaries.

Dr Dufort’s official notes were brief and littered with incomplete sentences; there was no shortage of him referencing Patient 0561’s “curvature”. Only the final paragraph contains any semblance of academia-worthy writing:

**A young lady of exotic attraction** [Herman wrinkled his nose at this description] **, Patient 0561 is a self-proclaimed anarchist. Even after several sessions, she will not let go of nonsensical anti-capitalist and anti-police beliefs. She refused to be polite despite her doctor’s gentle approach, and displayed extremely violent reactions toward any attempt at physical contact.**

Indeed, Herman thinks, exhaling through his nostrils. Trust Dufort to completely overlook the real reason 0561 was sent to Léry’s Memorial for treatment.

He moves on to read the notes of 0561’s second doctor, Moreau. At least his brief notes spend less time describing her physique, and are not as annoying to read.

He skims over the details and find Dr Moreau’s summary:

**Patient 0561 seems incapable of human expressions or feelings. Her face is blank all the time, and she barely says anything in response to perfectly rational questions. Not even good old-fashioned corporal punishment would get her to talk. If I hadn’t read the police report, I would never have thought she attended Brown University and not a special needs school.**

He smirks, sliding those reports back and close the cover of 0561’s folder. These men’s perceptions of 0561 did not surprise him in the least.

Doctors at this institute don’t typically show each other their methods, but humans – social creatures that they are – talk.

Female patients are not the only women who’ve had to put up with Dr Dufort’s “gentle approach”. At the same time, Herman once overheard a typist complain to a secretary that Dr Moreau keeps setting up questions that are obviously “leading the witness”, or in this case, patient.

“Yeah, I get it, you dropped out of law school,” Herman heard the secretary reply afterward.

Anyway. Why Mr Stamper ever agreed to hire “doctors” of Dufort’s and Moreau’s calibre, Herman could never comprehend. The two so-called medical professionals are ignorant imbeciles, incapable of conducting the simplest, most rudimentary interrogations.

Small wonder it has fallen upon Doctor Carter to navigate the valleys of 0561’s grey matter.

* * *

The previous doctors’ reports are signatures of their failure. The report Herman must submit to Mr Stamper is one that signifies progress – progress that is possible when he remain as the patient’s sole doctor. No “colleagues” to get in his way or mess him up.

He glances over his notes on the patient, at the wasted sheets of paper with entire lines crossed out (marks of frustration at his previous attempts to write a simple summary on her).

A whisper of static tickled his left temporal lobe. _“Let me guess: you want me to write it for you,”_ Patient 0561’s voice lilted with a sardonic bite.

He shakes his head; it was another leftover of the Restraint procedure. Patient 0561 was saying that to a faceless boy in a punk outfit when he complained about some report or other assignment.

Not that Herman needed her help. He can, and will, write his most faithful impression of her.

**Patient 0561 appears to have pre-existing neurological and/or psychological conditions which affect her development and behaviour prior to her arrival at the Institute. Presumably due to a history of parental abuse and neglect, as well as ostracism from classmates, 0561 exhibits symptoms of depression, which include pessimism, a general sense of detachment, and especially self-destructive tendencies.**

**The patient noticeably cooperates when approached with decency and mutual respect – even if only perceived as such – instead of predation and punishment. While this selective behaviour hints at some personal code of conduct, she is also acutely aware of her appearance as well as position in power. She may easily manipulate operatives who “don’t know better”.**

**Contrary to some doctors’ findings, Patient 0561 does value gentle physical contact, but only from those she thinks she can trust. Given the rapport I managed to establish with 0561, in addition to the positive effects of shock therapy on her, I humbly request that Patient 0561’s treatment sessions are run by me, and no one else.**

**I am prepared to assume full responsibility of the patient, from her day-to-day medical and therapeutic arrangements, to her imminent termination when she no longer has a use to the Institute.**

He smiled. There it is. All he has to do now is to get the report into formal print, and take it to Stamper’s office as quickly as possible.

* * *

It was only after he has signed and hand-delivered the report to Stamper’s unoccupied office that he fully realises the implications of his decision.

Dr Herman Carter is responsible for 0561’s care now. His instructions to the orderlies and guards – 0561’s shock routines, drug prescriptions, even possible dietary suggestions – are no longer just guidelines, but strict requirements. In a way, her life is now in _his_ hands.

On the way back to his office, he decided to visit the wards – not the patient rooms themselves, of course, but the corridors. Normally he liked to do this, to peep through the palm-sized windows and casually observe his patients in their more mundane moments. See their longer-term effects and responses to his special treatments.

But when he arrived at the heavy door to Patient 0561’s ward, he lingered. The orderlies certainly followed through with his demand to stop playing loud music. If he opened the tiny window, 0561 will surely pick up on the sound.

How would she react to Herman watching her this way? Why is he hesitating when he has never been consumed by these thoughts (with other patients) before?

“Fuck off, you self-centred, controlling bitch! I hope the CIA arrests you, too!”

He stands rooted to the floor, hand frozen before he can reach the window latch. Did she know he was here?

But that wasn’t how she spoke to him. Did she find a reason to change her tone?

He inhales as soundlessly as he can, and opens the tiny window.

Patient 0561 is seated on her bed, her back against the headboard, knees drawn up to her chest. She held up her forearms to protect her face and head.

_This is not how she behaved at her university or the police station. She was only like this at… at home._

If he concentrated hard enough, maybe he could see the outline of 0561’s Matriarch looming over the patient’s bed, whipping the younger woman at a speed that couldn’t be human.

He exhales heavily and slide the window shut. Patient 0561 would not be able to hear him over her sobs and curses.

Herman Carter has bashed the back of his own research partner’s head before reprogramming that simpleton’s entire personality. He has deprived university volunteers of sleep and food, torn flesh from them, and used them to test a variety of drugs. Some judgmental moralists might even say that the deeds done by his hands are innumerably more heinous than 0561’s firebomb-throwing and brawling (self-defending) fists.

What’s this? Could he be feeling pity for a small-statured stranger who has seen and faced so many injustices in this part of the world?

He steps away from the door to 0561’s ward; with every tread, he distances himself even more from the very notion that he had a conscience in the first place. To have a conscience is to impose limits on oneself.

Morals? Justice? Only children and fools would believe in those fairy tales. Yes, 0561 is also a fool. It doesn’t matter that it was mentally refreshing to converse with her instead of the next war prisoner. Politics this, state secrets that, whatever. 0561 weeps for justice, the fool that she is – but she _is_ brighter and sharper than most fools.

What is he doing? He shouldn’t be feeling sorry for her. He should write these things down as materials to use against her!

When Herman arrived at his office, he felt beads of sweat on his forehead. At some point, his brisk walk turned into a jog.

He shuts the door and turns the lock. Sitting at his table, his eyes are drawn to notes written by his hand, particularly: **“craves connection with someone who understands her”**.

He smiles despite himself. Of course. The Restraint treatment is a two-way looking glass. There are always risks associated with delving into the mind of a patient, risks that none of the other doctors here dared to take. They ridicule Carter’s methods, but laughter is often a fear-response in those reality-denying charlatans.

Yes… any compassion he purportedly feels is merely a leftover from his connection with his soft-hearted little patient. She may have use for emotions, but _he_ does not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My 3rd chapter "draft" turned out to be large (at a total of 4k words), so here's a small update first.


	4. Leisure

**.....**

Today is a Sunday, which means some of the other doctors and staff have gone home to be with their family, whereas the remaining handfuls tend to go out and about doing who-knows-what in nearby Michaelstown.

As loath as he is to admit it, Herman is often at a loss and uneasy on a typical off-day. An itch always bothers him on days like this; an odd consequence of finding so much pride and passion in his work.

Today seems as good as any to skim over the international news section on the papers regularly delivered to waiting rooms. Of course, people can’t trust everything they read, but having faced liars and truth-hiders on a daily basis, Herman know as well as any interrogator that the boldest lies and the longest silences can be signposts to the answers one has sought hard for.

There are more newspaper copies lying around since there are few workers spending their time chatting in a common area in this dreary building. He took the paper he was reading with him as he strolls back to his desk.

Someone has left a box of cassette tapes before the door to his office. Excitement surges through him.

In his haste to snatch up the box, his forehead bumped against his office door. He clamps his mouth and goes on one knee instead of bending at the waist to collect the highly-anticipated package.

In the privacy of his domain, he sets down the box and newspaper, and begins arranging the cassette tapes in chronological order.

With nothing much to do on a Sunday, Herman decides to start listening from the beginning. The earliest recording took place when 0561 was returned to her ward following his treatment session.

Non-verbal noises. Breathing, otherwise silence. He fast-forwards until there is more to hear than just the patient breathing.

Patient 0561 sneezes without voice when the room temperature reaches its lowest point. Her bed and entire floor are wired to deliver the necessary shocks at any time of the day. Herman can discern when his patient receives the shocks, because her foul-worded exclamations are more genuine than her theatrical reactions in their chess games.

Apart from breathing, long silences, and scheduled hygiene and meal routines, Patient 0561 can be heard singing. On some occasions, she briefly sings melodies she can remember. At other times, she drums on her bedframe and hums the part of backing instruments. Herman sat through a full performance of a song which, honestly, didn’t sound at all Satanic to him.

**_I need someone to show me the things in life that I can’t find;  
I can’t see the things that make true happiness, I must be blind_ **

He frowns. That tune is almost familiar, but he can’t recall its title or original music group. Not that it matters. He does not follow entertainment of the masses, much less a – what was it? – heavy metal subculture.

Few complete performances followed that full song. Sometimes Patient 0561 resumed singing in that vocal style. Otherwise, she recites melodies that lead her to attempt high notes – only to scream as she was interrupted by a scheduled shock.

 ** _“I have failed you, Mercury!”_** she shouted afterwards.

With pen and paper in ample supply, Herman diligently puts the aural observations of the patient in his own words. Every relevant second of voices and noises that will give him insight into her life… including her hallucinations of her mother. Including moments when her deciding to fight her mother’s hallucinations ended with her falling off her bed; or punching the walls at first by accident, and then just not stopping.

Patient 0561 really hates her mother, and no sane person would blame the patient for feeling that way.

 ** _“Doctor Carter?”_** she hollered at one point. **_“Do you have a hammer, or a mallet and chisel at least? There’s a fucking ghost in these walls!”_**

The orderlies heard the commotion, and he can just picture the aftermath in his mind’s eye. Security guards rush in to restrain her.

**_“She’s still in there. Take her outside so I can kill her!”_ **

**_“We need first aid in here.”_ **

Thrashing, a small cry of pain, and then finally slowing breaths: confirmation that an orderly had the patient sedated.

**_“Easy there, young lady.”_ **

They must be seeing to her wounds. Herman shouldn’t be surprised if she bears bandaged knuckles at their next appointment.

 ** _“She needs to fucking die.”_** The patient’s words are slurred, but the orderlies still sound cautious around her.

**_“0561, please calm down. Dr Carter strictly told us that no one here is permitted to harm you – we assume that includes yourself –”_ **

A choked sob caught Herman off-guard, and his slackened fingers fully lose their grip on his pen.

**_“Miss? What’s wrong?”_ **

0561 continued sobbing and sniffing, as voiceless as when she sneezed.

 ** _“Seems to calm her down, at least,”_** a security guard muttered.

 ** _“He cared,”_** the words made it out of her ragged throat.

Herman picks up his pen and resumes listening. He barely registers the hands of a wall clock moving. Mid-morning became noon, became half past three. He doubts his fellow doctors would bother to scan three days’ worth of patient recording with their own ears. Truth is, they don’t have the mental capacity to perform tedious tasks like this. In the end, Herman Carter will reap the rewards of his own hard work.

A low chuckle from 0561 startled him.

**_“Take that, Mom. I told you someone’s looking out for me now.”_ **

He cannot imagine what his patient saw, but whatever it was… well, he could just _ask_ her at their next appointment. It wouldn’t hurt _him_ to try. He scribbles a note for this.

Subsequent to the intense illusion and outside intervention, Patient 0561 seems to experience fewer of such events. This may have to do with a change in her state of mind, some foundational logic taking root.

Forced to rest her hands, Patient 0561 limits her drumming to foot-taps, but otherwise continues to sing songs that she knows. She apparently chants “breaking the law, breaking the law” whenever she is tired, probably to lull herself to sleep.

Herman stifles a yawn, but keeps his eyes open. His dear patient may highly value rest, but he has gone without it for days at a time; adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

On a separate occasion, Patient 0561 sang some melodic instrumental parts – later singing romantic lyrics.

**_There’s no one like you  
I can’t wait for the nights with you  
I imagine the things we’ll do  
I just wanna be loved by you_ **

Patient 0561 repeated that powerful chorus, her vocal cords on-tune with how she heard the song. But at the end of the final line, her drumming stopped, followed by a few seconds of silence.

 _“Ah, balls, that’s just pathetic of me, isn’t it?”_ Patient 0561 wondered before her back flopped heavily against her bed. Seconds passed in silence save for her breathing.

 _“Doctor?”_ she hushed out. _“Doctor Carter, you tricky, slippery scientist, taking away the good sounds that would’ve kept my mind occupied. Yeah, even that weird distorted grating noise. I believe I’ve told you this before.”_

From her end: inhale, exhale.

_“You didn’t tell me when I’ll see you again, but I haven’t been taken to see any other doctor, either.”_

Herman could not help smiling at that, even though his patient could not see him and his raised brows at the moment.

Ah, Patient 0561… She infuriates him with her intricacy. Sometimes she is so transparent and easy to read, but when he starts concluding something about her, she turns the tables and thinks she has figured him out in turn. Not that she is right, but damn, she gets closer and closer every time. Chess may not be a game she’s good at… no, chess is a distraction she uses. Her real game is something else.

Herman hears fabric shifting, probably 0561 moving to sit with her back against the headboard of her bed.

_“Maybe I’m just paranoid, but it could also be obvious: you want to listen to me talk, and maybe I’ll slip up and you can use that morsel of information against me.”_

He can almost _feel_ her shrug.

_“I’ve… seen people. Not real people, as I discovered, but always the same people. I –”_

Another long inhale and frustrated exhale.

 _“Ugh, it’s tiring to keep up this interrogation game we have. I_ want _to tell you about all the unsettling shit I saw, but then that shit could lead to you finding out who my so-called comrades were.”_

Herman’s fingers tensed up and strangled empty air. How is this involuntary dropout from Brown University so hard to crack?

Another moment of silence passes. A derisive chuckle escapes the patient.

 _“Here’s something stupid: I trust you. I_ want _to trust you. Why the fuck do I trust you? I probably shouldn’t, and I know it. I saw what’s in your brain when you saw mine, and Doctor – you’ve done some brutal shit. I shouldn’t think of myself as an exception: you’re gonna kill me too when you’re done using me.”_

He can lightly hear soft friction of fabric. He couldn’t place what it was – until he hears a change in 0561’s breathing pattern. Audible, almost rhythmic breaths, fuller and heavier than normal. It was only when he hears the low vocalisations of pleasure in her voice that he realises what she was doing.

 _“To be honest, I don’t mind you using me for more than interrogation exercises,”_ she drawled, tremors affecting her tone. She is making every touch noticeable to him.

_“I’m sure you would’ve picked up on the strong hints – mmm – hints that I – aaah – that I’m interested in you, Dr Carter.”_

He loses his grip on his pen entirely. His weekend slacks and boxers start to feel tight over his groin area.

_“I – I want you, Dr Carter.”_

Patient 0561’s voice climbs to a higher pitch, her words punctuated by rhythmic panting. In the quiet of his office, he can actually hear the patient’s bedframe and mattress springs creaking in time to some forceful thrusts.

Are hidden microphones supposed to be this sensitive?

Herman exhales hard through his nostrils. He clutches the edge of his office table to support him rising to his feet.

 _“You don’t have to want me –”_ she began, but cried out mid-sentence. It sounded like a brief bout of pain, but shortly, her limbs move again, and heavy breaths of carnal desire return. _“I just want this – aaaah! – and I hope you want it too.”_ Patient 0561 picks up the pace from there.

Herman couldn’t take it anymore. He pauses the tape recorder and rewind it to – what’s a good place to start it? – when she said she trusts him.

**_“I_ want _to trust you.”_**

* * *

He has hastily put away his work, tape recorder tight in one hand while he locked up his office on a non-work day. He strode with haste to his personal quarters.

He rummages in his bedside table drawer – it’s still there, a tube of lubricant, four months from expiry. When was the last time he used this?

Herman was tempted to remove his pants then and there, but thought about the obvious mess he would have to clean afterward. So instead he took the lube and tape recorder into the connected bathroom.

As he unbuckles his belt, as he pulls his slacks and boxers down in one motion, a prouder part of him is judging his current actions. He has often regarded himself as above primitive impulses.

But just as 0561 is no exception to his standard ministrations, he is not an exception to the human need to feel the afterglow of desire.

With sleeves rolled up, hands washed and dried, and the tape recorder volume turned down (a little; he just doesn’t want the sounds to echo too much), he hits the Play button and uncaps the tube, squeezing plain lubricant along the top of his erect penis.

He listens again to Patient 0561’s words: she has seen the things he’s done, and she knows her own death is not far.

Unable to hold the anticipation for much longer, he uses one hand to rub his length, the other ready to add more lube. With his patient’s voice as his guide, he starts gently, pumping in time with those vulgar noises she makes.

**_“I want you, Doctor Carter.”_ **

At the sound of his professional name falling from her lips, precum leaked from his tip. He removes his cock-stroking hand and breathes, not wanting to finish off too quickly.

Her cry of pain – the Order shock he scheduled for her – stirs something in his blood, making his nerves jolt with unique excitement. That gratifying sound became the cue for him to continue stroking, to run his palm and fingers over his hard, straining cock.

He adds one last squeeze of lube and set its container aside (to fall lopsided on the shower stall floor). His less-occupied hand helps to steady his position, standing against a smooth-tiled wall.

His patient’s voice climbs to a higher pitch, and for a few seconds, he hears only her fast breaths. He testily picks up the speed of his stroking, and soon hears a beautiful noise unlike any other, the vocal expression of ecstasy. He gasps and hurries the motion of rubbing along his shaft. The sounds of 0561’s orgasm continued over a few seconds, but did not extend to a point that feels fake.

With his free hand, he stops the tape recorder, and between his heated state of being and the slickness covering his cock, he allows himself release.

An airy groan escapes his mouth as thick strands of semen squirt from his penis. He runs his working hand over his shaft a few more times to keep the sensation lasting as long as it can.

Herman’s breaths slow down. The cool air nudges his bare skin to help return him to his senses. When he is finally fully lucid, he picks up the tape recorder with his clean hand, exits his bathroom, and places it on his bedside table. He then returns to the bathroom to pick up his tube of lubricant and to wash his hands at the sink.

He glances out the window – when did the sun set? – and starts unbuttoning his shirt. Might as well shower and change for dinner.

Icy water rains down on his dark skin, washing off his sweat and the mess he made, taking filth down the drain without judgment. The only sense of vindictiveness comes from his higher sense of self. He _knows_ what certain doctors or even security guards sometimes do to the few female patients at the Institute – to break them, or to amuse themselves, it doesn’t matter.

A calmer, probably wiser voice in his head tells him what he just did is not the same thing. He was listening, and then he was tempted. He made love to Patient 0561’s voice. He did not assault her himself…

Well, subjecting a person to electroshock therapy might be regarded as assault, but – that was therapy, treatment. He has not broken any of his personal principles.

After brief soaping, rinsing, and then drying off with a towel, Herman puts his dirty clothes in the laundry basket, and begins to don on what was supposed to be tomorrow’s set of workwear.

Facing the mirror, he places layer upon layer of garment on himself. With each clothing article he puts on, he can more clearly see the higher being, the sense of self he maintains in public and in private.

Then he frowns. He can feel light static somewhere in the air around him, a sensation just on the edge of tickling. He breathes slowly and concentrates; the prickle is strongest in the centre of his left-hand palm.

Herman brings his left hand up. His real limb looked ordinary, but in the mirror, he sees brilliant little strands of lightning dancing from fingertip to fingertip, arcing over the palm-centre like lovers on a bonfire night.

He lowers his left hand and draws a shaky breath. Emotionally, he hates that something is happening that he knows nothing about, but a wiser part of him decides to see this as another experiment to perform, another question whose answer will be dug up by hook or by crook.

_“I doubt a tiny devil-worshipper like myself can stir revulsion in a broad-shouldered, brilliant man of science such as yourself.”_

He turns away from the mirror and hurries to the Institute’s dining hall. He will _not_ imagine Patient 0561’s dirty little hands on his shoulders. He will select tonight’s bland food and find solace in the fact that tomorrow is Monday! Finally his usual workload of interrogating and treating patients will resume!

* * *

_Everything is prepared. There is no turning back._

_Almost every nerve ending of the Patient is connected to the electro-shock machine. As the ultimate punishment for her resistance, her final minutes of life will be a world of excruciating pain._

_Dr Carter flips the switches. The currents gather, pouring through the wire into the doomed young woman’s body._

_He watched the brilliant sparks crackle and chase each other over the Patient’s skin. Her muscles seize up, straining against the straps that hold her to her chair._

_Dr Carter, uncaring and indifferent, coldly turns the dial to deliver the highest voltage his machine is capable of putting out._

_She is exposed to so much electricity, it must be painful… Shouldn’t she be screaming?_

_He almost let out a long exhalation of disappointment. The corpse of Patient 0561 eventually went limp, and smoke wisped out of where the electrode pads were in contact with her skin._

_Then an ugly squelch reached his ears._

_Angular legs pierce from within the charred corpse, eight in total. When they find firm support on the treatment theatre floor, the creature’s enormous body wriggle free of the husk it hatched out of._

_It was a human-sized spider._

_Dr Carter did not move when it approached him, when it placed its forelegs on his shoulders._

_“Sucks to be human, doesn’t it?” He heard it speak in Patient 0561’s voice – slightly deeper and distorted, but it had her exact inflections._

_The spider bit the murderous Doctor’s neck. The Doctor expected to feel numbing venom, but what coursed through him instead was sharp electrical current._

_It is his turn to ride the lightning._

* * *

In darkness, Herman woke with a start.

It was just a nightmare involving spiders again, nothing more.

He forces himself to smile and laugh. There were times when he ran experiments drugging spiders in his senior year of high school. The results were quirky, with the patterns of their webs varying depending on what kind of drug they took.

Inhale, exhale. Time to slow down the beating of his heart. Most of his patients won’t sleep so comfortably, but he could. So he shall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I drafted this in first-person from Doc’s point of view; I hope I represented him faithfully. The fic starts getting explicit from here.  
> Dr Carter had a 4head moment. It happens when he’s so damn tall.  
> November 2020 note: As much as I want to be consistent about the formatting, I don't think it would be pleasant to bold the entire recording segment. In other words, I really haven't thought this through -.-;


	5. Imagination

**.....**

A total of five days have passed since Patient 0561’s first treatment under Doctor Herman Carter. Today’s mid-morning appointment is the first formal follow-up on the patient’s condition.

Herman told the orderlies beforehand to prepare 0561 with reduced anaesthesia. He was pleased to see, then, that the dark-haired young woman was visibly twitching and fidgeting in her chair. The bandages on her knuckles have also been freshly replaced.

_Good – they also followed my instruction regarding her restraints._

“Are you the real Dr Carter?” Patient 0561 asks when Herman enters her field of vision.

He gives no outward reaction – at least, until he has finished attaching electrodes to her head and put on his own customised headpiece.

He turns to the patient, bearing a warm and gentle smile. “I am real,” he states.

Patient 0561 raises her right hand only for her wrist to catch against the leather strap. It might not cut off her circulation, but it is not loose to the point that she can slip out. At least she is just trying to reach for Herman rather than shaking her electrodes off like in the first session.

“Oh, yeah? How can I be sure? Can I poke your beefy arm?”

He adjusts the settings on the ECT machine. Today the Class II Restraint procedure will be accompanied by a press-to-activate button delivering Discipline shocks when needed. If entering the patient’s mind is not enough, then additional pain – a fixed dose at high voltage – might open new avenues.

He presses the Discipline button for two seconds to get the patient to stop fooling around. Her small body and limbs convulse from the current running through her.

He withdraws his hand from the ECT console and meets his patient’s eyes – they were wild and desperate before, and now lock onto his with burgeoning clarity.

“That’s _one_ way of confirming how real you are,” Patient 0561 calls out. Her voice sounds strangled, yet she maintains a tone of humour.

A few long-legged strides are enough to take Herman to stand directly before her.

“You are the first patient here who’s positively eager for another session with me,” he states flatly.

Patient 0561’s dark-irised eyes widen, and she turns her face to her left.

_‘No, don’t think about_ that _! What do I say?’_ her non-physical voice echoes.

She regains her composure and looks up to face Herman again. Her mouth is tightened into a straight line – an attempt to not show a wholehearted smile.

_‘I mean, you are the least boring person in this place. While I’m a captive here, I don’t mind seeing you time and again.’_

He can hear her voice even when her mouth is closed. Due to how frequently it has been happening, he already accepted it as a consequence of having undergone Restraint procedures with her.

“Will you cooperate with me on our appointment today?” he asks.

Patient 0561 blinks, her face loosening into a neutral demeanour.

“That depends on what you’ll tell me to do, and how you talk to me.”

If she had been aware Herman was listening to recordings of her in her ward, she is not specifically mentioning it.

“Very well.”

He returns to his chair by the console. Notes from listening to recordings of 0561 in her ward are arranged chronologically. He skims over each significant timestamp and the sentence-long summaries written in the margins.

He does not look forward to discussing the lower pages in the informal file.

“Dr Carter,” Patient 0561 calls out, thankfully using a more masculine pitch of voice, “may I know why the hell I haven’t heard any Black Sabbath or other bands since I attended your session?”

Hmph. Of course she picked up on that. She is strange enough to not be bothered by Dr Carter’s subliminal audio loop, let alone heavy-instrumented music she memorises by heart.

“What is Black Sabbath?”

He overheard the law school dropout typist talking about the British heavy metal group at dinner last night, of course. He just wanted to see Patient 0561’s reaction to his supposed blissful ignorance.

Something about the question – is it the blank way he asked it? – induced 0561 to tug against the restraints and try to leave her treatment chair. There is incredulous annoyance on her face, looking as if she wants to pull at Herman’s necktie so his eyes are level with hers.

“You keep your prisoners awake by blasting heavy metal music, and you don’t know who the artists are?!” Patient 0561 demands.

Herman smiles with one hand raised, palm forward; he does not want to aggravate her further.

“I am not in charge of the little details of patients’ living conditions, or the music used to study their sleep patterns. That’s Dr Goldfarb’s area of responsibility,” he explains.

“I haven’t met a Dr Goldfarb here at Léry’s. Is he a metalhead himself? Or does he just find loud music to use on prisoners?” Patient 0561 wonders.

With a glance at Herman’s disbelieving face, she slumps back and tilts her head up to look at the treatment theatre’s ceiling.

“And here I thought I could make you laugh with a metalhead’s inside joke.”

_She wants to – excuse me?_ He pauses.

“If there is something you wish to say, then by all means, please do,” he replies, maintaining professional curiosity. As with various other sessions, today’s appointment is being recorded on tape.

She looks at him again, tips of her fingers drumming against the solid armrests of the treatment chair.

“I was really hoping you were aware… One of the songs that were played on the speakers in my room – at least before it got stopped under orders – was by Black Sabbath. And the title of the song? ‘Paranoid’.”

The seeming irony hits him like a plank of wood falling on his face. He did not mean to laugh, but he still let out a few seconds of guffaw.

He clears his throat and resets his poise. Patient 0561 is giggling; he wonders if it was at the joke she is fully aware of, or at successfully making _him_ laugh.

The patient looks comfortable. This is a good opportunity to let her talk freely.

“I can see you really like Black Sabbath. Are there other heavy metal artists whose work you follow?” He encourages her to keep talking while he settles into the light chair by the ECT console.

He takes down scattered notes while his patient goes on a tangent about Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Blue Oyster Cult – just how many heavy metal groups have a descriptive colour in their name anyway? There is even a group simply named Rainbow.

However, 0561 also cites almost-familiar names like Queen, Judas Priest, and Scorpions – bands he probably hears more on the radio than in the patients’ wards.

“I completely understand why Dr Goldfarb didn’t include ‘Breaking The Law’ by Judas Priest as something to keep us so-called patients awake. The song can be catchy, to the point it might inspire them to break even more laws,” she says with a smile.

This time Herman manages to keep himself from laughing aloud. He studies his patient in a collected manner. The groups’ names leave her mouth with amicable ease, as though she is reminiscing about dear friends.

“Did your anarchist compatriots also listen to the music you like?” he asks.

Patient 0561’s rhythm is not disrupted at all. She briefly rolls her eyes and exhales through her nostrils.

“They’re more into the punk scene, and even so, only because they like to dress that way.” She rests her back against the treatment chair. “Now that you mention it, they don’t even _like_ music. My time with them wasn’t just a waste; it was regrettable.”

_You don’t look like you regret being placed in my lab as a result of spending time with them,_ Herman thinks, but does not say aloud.

Maybe 0561 sees it in his eyes, or maybe she heard what he was thinking. Either way, she turns her face away from his.

_‘Fuck,’_ he hears her curse.

Herman puts down the pen and paper. Polished leather shoes meet the metal floor and support his weight.

He has delayed the mind-linking Restraint procedure for long enough. He gives the ECT machine settings a once-over to ensure that the proper wavelength goes through. His plan is to enter her mind again, and add Discipline shocks if she fails to deliver results.

“I would say you’re bright enough to have figured out: I stopped having loud music played in your ward so that I may hear what words you let slip.”

Patient 0561 eyes her bandaged knuckles, which Herman sincerely hopes are healing well. Punching at walls is just not rational behaviour.

“You care, don’t you?” She looks up at his face.

He is secretly relieved that she is not addressing _that recording_ yet.

“Before I answer that, I want to know what you saw. You said…”

He toggles the treatment current-delivery lever ON. Patient 0561’s upper body arcs back, and then flinches as though someone hit her in the face.

He calls up the memory of hearing the words: **_“Take that, Mom. I told you someone’s looking out for me now.”_**

_What did you see, 0561?_ he asks through the link.

The interior of a two-storey suburban house – it felt familiar to the viewer. An untidy bedroom littered with books and cassettes. The viewer is lazing in bed, yet at the same time able to see an oncoming source of lifelong anguish.

_“Sonya!”_ an unpleasant voice yells at the closed bedroom door. The name belonged to the viewer – the original one.

The viewer sits up in their bed, small but not helpless. The Matriarch smashes through the door and charges toward the viewer, but a network of sparks race across the floor and up the woman’s bare feet. The Matriarch goes immobile, and falls on her knees. The viewer can hear something crack.

_“Take that, Mom. I told you someone’s looking out for me now.”_

The viewer looks to their right. A tall man wearing a lab coat holds a spiked mallet in his right hand.

_“No one touches her but the Doctor,”_ he proclaims in a combination voices: Herman Carter and a more sinister persona.

The real Herman regains control of his physical body and switches off the Restraint current. His back is turned so Sonya – Patient 0561 – will not see even a hint of how thrown-off he is at that sight. He does not even trust his face to hide how he feels.

He picks up his pen and writes down observations of the patient. One of his questions got answered, but that just raised more inquiries.

**How did this vision get written over her original memories of abuse? Was she able to keep it since she liked seeing it?**

**Did she _like_ the manufactured memory?**

What he did not write down was: _Whose voice was there with mine at the end?_

“I care,” he states to Sonya – no, 0561. He cannot simply disregard her position as his patient. “That’s why I need you to help answer my employer’s questions, without lies or omissions.”

Out of the corner of an eye, he sees her give a solemn, sincere stare. “I _want_ to trust you.” Those exact words, that very inflection… He has heard the phrase before.

He glances away, his cheeks heating up.

To his relief, she continues on: “But I can never trust _them_. Your so-called employer is among the kind of people that we’d work hard to prove ourselves to. And when disaster strikes, they’ll leave people like us to take the fall.”

He frowns at her. There she goes on again about ‘people like us’.

“You tried to pull that off at Yale, didn’t you? In the end, they had been watching you all along. Apparently, even after that discovery, you’re still here working for people like them. Can _you_ trust your so-called employer?”

Herman keeps his finger on the Discipline button for six seconds. The choked screams of a patient undergoing his shock therapy would normally amuse him, but today a clear purpose drives him to concentrate on the results.

Patient 0561’s limbs and body spasm slightly. Her head hangs, and her eyes look down.

_Trying to whittle my faith in the system that gave me this power? How tenacious you are to keep fighting for your senseless aims._

He flips the Restraint switch; the ECT machine sends currents of that required wavelength to two scalps.

He calls up the memory of the police station – no, it has to be earlier. Flaming bottles lobbed at walls and windows of an office that conceals its true purpose.

Earlier than that, please. _Who are her comrades? What are their names? What do their faces look like?_

Diagrams of skeletons and skinless humans as found in high school Biology textbooks. Chimpanzees in caps, masks, and scarves. The remaining humanoid comrade has Dr Dufort’s stupid face, and he keeps trying to touch the viewer.

Herman opens his eyes, switches the Restraint current OFF, and slams his fist on the side of the ECT console.

_How is 0561 able to obstruct my access to her memories?!_

The patient takes her breaths in gulps, her pulse as high as if she just finished running from imminent danger. With her eyes still shut, she raises her head and angles her face toward Herman’s.

“You know, the shocks from the previous appointment – when you started wearing your wire hat – felt like you were only trying to see me, and I appreciate that. The shocks you add today feel like you’re seriously trying to stress me out, so I can only respond to those with ‘fuck off’.”

While she leans back and continues to catch her breath, he weakly resists the urge to stare at her rising and falling chest. What he should feel now is fury, but that ongoing heat is also accompanied by awe.

_How interesting…_

Whenever he used shock treatments in which he shared his patients’ madness, they hollered words of denial or disbelief afterward. Many ended up screaming in fear, barely coherent in their dread of the Lord, the Devil, spiders, flesh-eating maggots, vampire leeches, or the Doctor.

Patient 0561 emerges from Restraint and Discipline treatments not only questionably lucid; she even describes these ECT procedures in line with their intended effects or expected results.

He stands up from his uncomfortable seat, detaches his headgear, and puts it atop the console. He stares into the treatment theatre’s vertical space, at visible and hidden surveillance cameras. He would be damned if some imbeciles out there are trying to test him again.

_I am the conductor of experiments, not their subject!_

He does not give in to the urge to cover his face or close his eyes from the artificial brightness. He clenches his jaw and keeps his head high.

He turns to face his patient again. Her eyes are closed and her head hangs to one side. Her dry, chapped lips are moving slightly, muttering the same words at specific rhythm and intervals: “Breaking the law, breaking the law…”

Something about Patient 0561 has certainly bothered Herman since his first session with her.

_Why is she here? Did Mr Stamper arrange for her to end up under my care so that he can test the limits of my treatments’ effectiveness?_

But wait… Life with her vindictive mother and powerless father, her exasperation with her lazy classmates and unfair teachers, her blazing fury when facing selfish perverts – those are all real.

And she did not end up with Herman right away; she had to put up with Doctors Dufort and Moreau first. It was only fortunate that Dr Moreau used _Carter’s_ name as a threat, not that of some condescending sleazebag. Léry’s Memorial Institute is filled with those kinds of doctors, apparently.

Those men are not clever enough to have knowingly sent him a patient capable of dismantling his treatments. This young woman happened to be a jewel among special cases. She is worth spending extra time on.

_Besides, when have I ever retreated from adversity?_

He sits at the ECT console and writes on a sticky note: **Patient 0561 not to be transported back to ward yet**. When the ink dries, he goes to paste the note’s adhesive back on the door exterior using the small viewing window.

Back at the centre of the room, he regards his patient – now fast asleep, inadvertently taking advantage of the long pause created by his frustration. With her wrists and ankles bound, torso and lap belted to the treatment chair, she looks like the most vulnerable and helpless patient in the Institute.

Anyone who believes that, of course, is a complete fool.

**Is it still possible to force results out of 0561 using a direct approach? Or is it better to make her think she’s in control, and then slip in when she least expects it?**

He writes down the options on the yellow legal pad filled with earlier scrawls. It would be insane to keep taking the former course of action and expect different results out of it.

A breathy sentence creeps by his skull: _“I don’t mind you using me for more –”_

Use her. That’s right.

For some reason, 0561 is capable of understanding Dr Carter’s shock treatments. It could be a side effect of undergoing repeated Restraint Class II procedures, which strengthened the link between his mind and hers.

But then again, what separates her from the other screaming patients?

He has an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I end up writing more than I planned earlier, _again_. Plus Dr Carter seems to be stretching the boundaries of what he can get away with doing.


	6. Enticement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> asdfghjklhaa thank you everyone for your support on this fic, they really help motivate me to continue writing, editing, and uploading.  
> I know how I'm going to end this fic, I've been planning for that forever. But side-stops and detours pop up one after another as I keep on writing >.<

**.....**

**_“I_ ** **want _to trust you.”_**

That was something Patient 0561 insistently told Herman, but did he make use of it? Not properly, as far as he can tell.

Might as well start now.

He pulls the polished electrode pads from 0561’s head quickly, careful to prevent the adhesives from hurting her. If she feels the touch of his hands, she does not show it; her breaths are slow and even.

He continues watching out for sudden movements as he undoes the seat’s restraints on her wrists and upper body. Still no reaction; this may be the soundest sleep she has gotten since arriving at the Institute.

Herman puts away the wires and stops the present tape recording. Time spent with 0561 often feels brief, even though minutes and hours continue to march.

He must remember why he is here: he has a job to do. Then again, she is part of the reason he enjoys this job.

He writes down a question on his mind:  
 **If Patient 0561 is difficult to deal with in her physically weakened state, how much of a threat can she pose to other difficult patients if she had been otherwise healthy or fully lucid?**

He checks the clock atop the ECT machine, its face visible to him but not to the patients. It is almost noon now.

On an average workday, he would – at this time – send off the current patient, have the treatment theatre cleaned up, and depart for the cafeteria. On particular days, much like today, he feels the need to eat lunch in the lab so as not to lose the momentum of work that would lead to important discoveries.

In addition, eating in front of starved and sleep-deprived patients usually breaks their willpower even further.

Using the fixed call line, Herman phones the orderlies’ station, instructing them to bring two servings of lunch to his lab. He also notifies them to get two nurses to escort Patient 0561 to the bathroom and return her here afterward.

To occupy his time waiting for them to arrive, he skims over the other set of files he brought along today.

**Patient 0223. M, 59**

**Natural US citizen. Stationed in Berlin during US occupation of Germany in WWII. Upon return in 1946, began expressing more pro-communist sentiments. Sometimes seen at anti-war protests and events in Vietnam War years.**

**Arrest necessitated when Patient was confirmed to have behaved in suspicious patterns: receiving and sending international mail containing cryptic messages hinting at targeted action. Names and addresses of Patient’s dubious contacts all turned out to be fictitious or implausible.**

While cryptographers worked on deciphering those messages, the CIA sent Patient 0223 to Léry’s Memorial with hopes of unearthing the true identities of his contacts. Dr Moreau thus far only managed to get the names of Patient 0223’s inactive and retired associates. As usual, Agent Stamper charged Dr Carter with identifying the names of the veteran’s comrades that are more likely to be active.

Herman has tried to crack the 59-year-old’s head twice before. In the first session, with Calm and Order wavelengths, he learned that there are five active associates. In the second, with Discipline shocks, he coerced two names out of the patient.

He was supposed to conduct his third treatment session with Patient 0223 today, in the afternoon. He has not estimated how many names he will dig out, if he could manage that at all.

Getting into 0223’s mind with the usual Class II Restraint shocks might make progress swift, but the morning session with 0561 has given him new perspective.

* * *

Patient 0561 was not even disturbed by the sounds of lunch arriving or the orderlies and nurses chatting in the background. Herman had to shake her awake.

“Did I fall asleep, or did I faint? Not that I can tell the difference when it happens,” she exclaims.

He places one hand on her shoulder. “Get ready to wash up.”

Barely moving, almost too tense to breathe when she notices other people present, 0561 lifts her face toward Herman’s.

“Why?”

“We’re about to have lunch.”

“Here? In this lab?”

“Yes,” he says with a tolerant nod.

He is getting accustomed to the young woman’s questioning manner – but at the same time, he can feel the Institute staff staring at him. They have never seen him this warm before; not with patients, not with colleagues or other workers.

Patient 0561 guards her actions, limiting her movements even after her last restraints are released. After she pushes on the armrests to stand up, the nurses grasp her by the forearms. Herman feels 0561 frown even before the expression occupies her face.

He places his left hand on top of her head. “Behave yourself.”

She tightens her jaw and lowers her eyes, and nods, letting his hand smooth her hair slightly. As she allows herself to be led out by the nurses, he hears her disembodied voice teasing: _‘Oh, is_ that _what you’re into?’_

He tunes that out, as well as whispered speculations among the departing nurses and the orderlies who are sanitising 0561’s recently-vacated treatment chair.

When the orderlies have also left, he sets up a foldable table in front of the bolted seat. He places his chair at the other end of that table, atop which he arranges the trays of lunch.

Patient 0561 is returned to Dr Carter’s lab within 15 minutes, smelling like generic soap and dryer lint. Her posture is strong and her eyes are alert. This is probably the closest to her natural state he has ever seen.

She reclaims her treatment chair, blinking at the table Herman has prepared. The two of them wait for the nurses to leave. Then she stares as he also takes his seat.

“This is an unusual idea for a date,” she comments.

He takes the thin plastic lid off his own tray and sets it aside.

“Eat your lunch. We’ve got work after this.”

Patient 0561’s eyes widen in the manner of a startled hawk.

“Lunch – work – _we_?” she sputters.

He sighs and lifts the lid of 0561’s lunch tray, stacking the single-use plastic atop the one he removed earlier.

“You kept saying you want to trust me. Fine. I want you to trust me, too.” He meets her eyes again. “I acknowledge it would be counter-productive to force your cooperation on that end. So I will put my trust in you first, and see if you will return the favour.”

In response to that last sentence, Patient 0561 involuntarily moves her leg, which ends up touching Herman’s. He hears high-pitched screaming even when her mouth is visibly closed.

He turns his attention toward his food. He has to keep a tight rein on his physical and mental state. It is true that she amuses him, but _they have work to do_. The curiosity could kill him if he lets it.

_The 0223 file,_ he reminds himself. He needs to focus… but Patient 0561 was flustered enough to prove she was consistent in how she felt about Herman.

He finishes most of his meal, now sipping at lemon cordial, but 0561 is struggling to bite off the remaining half of her bagel sandwich. He dabs at his mouth and wipes his hands with a paper napkin. Now is as good a time as any to ask her…

“There is one thing I want to verify.”

Patient 0561 swallows her mouthful and pauses eating, her dark brown eyes wary and intense.

“Did you really –” he clears his throat, “– touch yourself while thinking about me?”

The young woman bursts out laughing and drops the unfinished sandwich into her tray. Her eyes are squeezed shut in mirth rather than pain, one hand covering her occasionally-cursing mouth while the other forearm crosses over her stomach. Ten seconds of out-loud laughter become twenty, thirty…

Oh, why bother. He should have expected all that shock therapy would one day make her snap.

At perhaps the final seconds of a full minute, 0561 leans back in her treatment chair, hands covering up (hopefully) the last of her giggles.

Herman raises one brow when she peeks up at him.

“Are you quite done?”

“Ah, shit, I’m sorry,” she begins, wiping laugh-tears from her eyes. “I was wondering if _that_ was what you were specifically looking to record when you took the music away.”

Suppressed snickers still bubble up from the patient as Herman drains what was left in his cup and places the plastic cover back on his tray.

“Well, you caught me, 0561. I’m one of those pervert doctors you wouldn’t talk to.”

A small hand takes hold of the underside of his fist, the part he used to hit the sturdy metal casing of the ECT console.

“That was a joke, Dr Carter,” Patient 0561 confesses, her tone gentle and apologetic. “Though I wonder whether something like that would turn you on or scandalise you.”

He senses more longing in her eyes now than on the first appointment, when he appeared to be leaving her.

“I haven’t even been in many relationships, let alone healthy ones. And right now – considering you’re my doctor and I’m your patient – I guess it’s an outlandish fantasy for me to think I can ever be your partner.”

_She fantasises about becoming my partner?_

University students drugged, starved and kept awake, and later electrocuted. An assistant knocked out, tied up, and entirely reprogrammed to torture truths out of what remained of the students.

These were things Herman managed to get away with – when allowed to act on his impulses and give in to temptations set by his curiosity. If Sonya becomes the next target of said curiosity… Herman won’t know where to stop.

_Is 0561 sure this is the path she wants to take?_

That may be a pointless question to ponder. He was the one who decided to take her down that path in the first place.

“You can call me Sonya, by the way,” she rambles on.

She had just finished her sandwich, and is now munching at less-burnt concertina fries.

“I know places like prisons and this kind of hospital tend to use numbers when referring to inmates, to strip them of their humanity. But ‘oh-five-six-one’ just isn’t wired to my brain the way ‘Sonya’ is, y’know?”

She introduced herself a while ago, after a fashion, but this time she states a preference.

“Sonya, hmm…”

She raises her eyebrows. “What do you mean by ‘hmm’?”

The corners of Herman’s mouth quirk up. “It’s a good name for an anarchist.”

* * *

When lunch ends, Herman puts away the foldable table, and Sonya helps place the two emptied trays on the trolley they arrived in.

“So, what kind of work have we got?” she asks, standing in front of Herman’s console, behind which there are wires connected to her treatment chair.

He can see she is curious about what the dials, knobs and controls do. But not enough to touch them, or change the settings herself. It is good that she has self-discipline.

“Interrogation.”

Hearing his answer, Sonya has a moment of silent thought, and then tentatively makes fists with her tiny hands.

“No, you won’t get to beat people up yourself.”

Not that Herman knows whether she is willing to do that. Sure, she has violent tendencies when placed in particular situations. She may have reservations about letting state bodies take advantage of her temperament, though.

He guides Sonya back to her treatment chair. She sits with some hesitation, but meets his eyes with an expectant air.

“Here’s something I observed, Sonya: you are not the first patient to have undergone my Restraint treatment – the one where patient and doctor minds are linked. You are not unique in having been subjected to Restraint wavelengths more than once.”

She keeps her expression blank throughout his explanation.

“You are, however, my first ever patient to successfully block my access to your original memories by changing them – even coming up with weird visualisations.”

Sonya blinks. “Should I apologise for that?”

Herman smiles at this innocuous-seeming patient. “You can make up for it, if you’d like –” he gestures at the empty treatment chair several paces to her right, “– by taking over my original role of rooting around in a fellow patient’s mind.”

She raises her hands slightly and scoots backward. One of her elbows makes jarring contact with her chair’s backrest.

“I’m not one to care about protocol and permission, but – will this get you into trouble?”

He laughs aloud despite himself, though for not nearly as long as she did earlier.

For a devious memory-manipulator, Sonya can still be so naïve and foolish. Even more foolish is the way she seems to care about Herman, as if _he_ cared for her in the first place.

“Little lady, I know what _real_ trouble is. You won’t have to worry; I am authorised with the discretion to choose my methods.”

Her eyes now appear resolute. She gives a firm nod – a sign that she trusts him in this regard.

“Alright, then.” Sonya leans back and rests her hands on her lap. “I’ll give it a try. Can’t guarantee I’ll be any good at it, though.”

Herman tilts his head, posture withering.

“This is an experiment, Sonya. There is no requirement for you to be ‘good’ at something whose quality is hard to measure.”

He picks up the Patient 0223 folder from the console and passes it to her.

“Those are the details of your fellow patient: a former serviceman with a change of heart Uncle Sam doesn’t approve of. As you’ll find out when you read on, he has been withholding crucial information from my colleagues and superiors.”

As he briefs Sonya on the incoming patient, he busies himself with the necessary preparations: untangling connector wires and high-stimulus electrodes, connecting their ends to where they belong.

“Two names down, three to go,” she states her understanding. “Where’s his personal background? Oh wait, never mind, there it is.”

It may be puzzling – for an average person, at least – to see this young woman absorb prisoner information, in the same manner with which she would have read academic journals. She even holds the papers at arm’s length to continue reading while Herman reattaches her electrodes from earlier.

How starkly she has changed since the beginning of her first session with Dr Carter. She even holds herself still, making it as easy as possible for him to do his work properly and uninterrupted.

When he has finished, she relaxes her elbows. He notices her momentary eye contact – an expression of purpose.

_Oh, so you don’t want me to solve you – but you’re just itching to help me solve someone else._

Whether or not she hears Herman’s thoughts, her determination does not appear to waver.

_‘You said I don’t have to be good, Doctor? That’s too bad; I have a stubborn sense of “how things should be”.’_

Whatever he is about to respond with ends up not surfacing at all. Sonya inhales sharply and pushes the Patient 0223 papers into Herman’s hands.

“There are footsteps coming this way. They shouldn’t see us like this, right?” There is urgency in her voice.

He is not mean enough to tell her about the treatment theatre’s overhead surveillance cameras already seeing them ‘like this’. Not that he has forgotten about them while talking to her either, of course.

He places the haphazard stack on the ECT console and hurries to fasten Sonya’s ankle restraints; meanwhile, she tightens the straps across her thighs and torso.

Work first. Laugh later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having watched lots of _Kuroko no Basket_ recently, I’d like to say Sonya is the Takao to Herman’s Midorima. I’ve been drafting much of this fic in first-person Herman POV, but I don’t think I can write Midorima yet.  
> For another fun fact: Midorima’s possible occupation outside of basketball is as a _doctor_.


	7. Diorama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: psychological torture, some blood and gore, and corporal child abuse.  
> Have I ever mentioned that I think Bethesda’s The Evil Within series had a lot of potential, but got held back by its zombie shooter genre? It’s the whole premise of “linking minds” that intrigued me at the time, and it is barely even memorable now.

**.....**

Herman adjusts Sonya’s binding wrist straps to his preferred setting. By the time he straightens his upper body, the double doors swing open.

“What song – ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’,” Sonya mutters to herself, and proceeds to drum softly with her toes and fingers.

Three orderlies oversee transporting Patient 0223 into the treatment theatre. The movement-restricted patient is taller than the average adult American, and while he is no longer fit for duty, he is still heavier than said average.

Hence the extra hands needed to wrestle him into his seat, in case sleep-deprivation and mild sedatives are not enough to keep him docile.

Two of the orderlies secure the restraints on Patient 0223 while the third moves the wheelchair to one side of the room. Herman stands by his active ECT console and rearranges the patient papers to occupy his time.

“You don’t _really_ believe this neural electro-thing can let you see inside the inmates’ heads, do you?” one of the men says.

“Shut your mouth, Trent. The Doctor can hear you,” Bob, the other orderly attending to 0223, chides his rat-faced colleague.

Finished with the menial task, Trent openly gapes at Sonya, who is singing at barely above a whisper:

“Where can you run to,  
What more can you do,  
No more tomorrow,  
Life is killing you.”

Herman moves to block the view, easily towering over the rat-faced simpleton.

“Would you like a seat in my lab?” he asks, his civil tone not quite matching his incisive glare.

Trent chuckles with his face turned up. “You’re a funny one, Dr Carter! But I get it – you want that foreign girl all to yourself.”

The orderly waves at Herman in a supposedly friendly manner and joins his companion in leaving the laboratory. Of the three, Bob remained to make final checks so that the preparations are to the Doctor’s satisfaction.

“It’s all good, thanks,” Herman assures him.

Bob nods wordlessly before also taking his leave. Herman recognises the expression on the orderly’s face; in this situation it contains apology, but at times that nod can also mean a promise.

When the orderlies have left, Sonya gradually slows down and ceases her drumming and occasional hums. Her earlier aimless gaze now falls on Herman, who is attaching the high-stimulus electrodes on the older patient. The placement is on the skin above the outsides of his eyes – not any different from his previous treatments.

Feeling the ends of the Doctor’s device on his face, Patient 0223 braces for the session to start. But when he looks up through his lethargic awareness, he notices he is not sitting where he normally does. He looks around and sees the patient who took his normal place, studies her appearance, and scoffs.

Patient 0223 frowns at Herman.

“Trying to torture someone else in my face? You think I’d give you the names to make you stop? Not gonna work – this brown girl is a total stranger to me.”

Herman allows Patient 0223 to guess the conclusion based on what he sees. War veterans like him are exposed to such torture and interrogation techniques.

The Doctor returns to his console and speaks into the active tape recorder: “Time is 1:45PM. The Patient undergoing experimental treatment is 0223. The ECT machine is given a Class II Restraint treatment preset.”

He pauses and glances at Sonya.

“During prior experiments in the day, Patient 0561 – codename ‘Sonya’ – displayed the ability to construct fictitious memories to impede her doctor’s use of an identical Restraint treatment. Given these findings, I would like to explore how she can interact with other patients.”

Herman sets the recorder down at a location where all three voices can be picked up. He puts on his headpiece, and double-checks the switches and dials on the ECT console.

He looks at Sonya again, wired up and ready to dive into someone else’s mind. If this turns out well, maybe she could use her own ECT headgear, too.

_I’m counting on you, Sonya._

She nods at him. He flips the switch ON.

Her eyelids slide closed and her spine stiffens, her fingers grasping at the armrests but not quite digging in.

He turns his attention to 0223. His head and limbs seize and jerk not unlike those of other patients undergoing the Class II treatment.

Herman has been accustomed to the shocks for years, so to him, there is no physical pain. He sits in his chair and closes his eyes. In a regular Restraint treatment, he would home in on questions to ask, but he is not in charge this time. He can stay in the shadows, allowing his voice to be unheard.

This time, he is merely an observer.

* * *

Patient 0223 stands in a spot of light in the void. There is a low, almost imperceptible hum in the background.

A tall woman with a tight smile, framed by voluminous blond curls hanging past her shoulders, steps up to face him. She wears a shirt, blazer and skirt in muted shades of blue, with metallic-grey high heels that click on the floor.

“What are you trying, lady? I know this isn’t how you really look like,” 0223 says.

The woman forces out polite laughter. “What I _look_ like?” That pompous middle-class white woman voice definitely _does not_ belong to Sonya.

“With all due respect – Sergeant?”

“It’s Lieutenant.”

“Ah, excuse me, Lieutenant. I am a certified counsellor. It is my job to resolve all sorts of conflicts, whether it’s between people or within oneself.”

She gestures behind her; neither patient nor observer noticed when a glass-paned door appeared there. She leads the way, opening the door and allowing him to step inside.

The counsellor goes to sit behind her desk, and waits for the Lieutenant – Patient 0223 – to claim one of the chairs on his side.

“Now, what comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘family’?” the blond woman asks.

“Wait – I have to remember,” the Lieutenant speaks, “I’m in Dr Carter’s lab.”

Despite his realisation, the surroundings do not change immediately. The counsellor tilts her head.

“Does that matter? Wherever you choose to go, they will be home.”

_This is why Sonya wanted to read on 0223’s personal background,_ Herman muses.

The mentioned ‘home’ materialises a distance from the counsellor’s office window. The Lieutenant and the counsellor walk toward the typical suburban house surrounded by a white picket fence. The two look through a window, but the inhabitants of the house do not notice them.

The ambient deep tone has not ceased. Rather, Herman can tell it has grown slightly louder. If Patient 0223 notices the constant noise around him and the counsellor, he does not show it.

It must look like a typical weekend in the household of the Lieutenant’s son. There is the 37-year-old breadwinner himself, Richard. His firstborn, 12-year-old Isaac, is helping him with an indoor DIY project. On the living room floor, little Angela and James – age 9 and 6 respectively – are doodling into blank books with crayons.

The Lieutenant’s daughter-in-law, Becky, treads through an archway and addresses the family: “Kids, we’ve got a letter from Grandpa!”

Richard looks up from his work with a golden smile. “Why don’t we all read it together?”

Tools are set aside, but the books and crayons are not abandoned yet. Patient 0223 presses his face against the window.

“Wait, I never sent any… No, don’t open it!”

He realises his family cannot hear or see him. He pounds a fist against the window, but the glass feels as hard as metal. Every beat, every impact, summons a scraping noise that seems to come from overhead, arcing around the veteran like vultures.

Becky opens the envelope. Richard stands next to her, Isaac on the opposite side of the letter Becky is unfolding. The mother of the household breathes in and chokes out a cough. Her husband follows suit, covering his mouth with one forearm.

“Mom? Dad?”

Blood leaks out of the couple’s eyes. Richard tries to say something to his firstborn son, but he sputters out more blood. The liquid emanates steam after landing on the letter. The flesh on their faces fall off bit by bit.

All three children scream, the younger ones crying. Even if they called for emergency services, it is too late to have physicians cure their parents’ ailment.

Patient 0223 backs away from the scene, face frozen in horror and dismay.

“Such a terrible situation,” the counsellor remarks. “Who do you think sent those letters in your name, Lieutenant?”

The old man swings a punch at the counsellor – his fist passes through the apparition of her dour face, and the moment that happens, a bloodcurdling scream pops up from just behind him.

The counsellor clicks her tongue a few times. “Not very civil, are you, Lieutenant? No wonder you’ve been locked up, away from your beloved family – so _you_ cannot harm them.”

“I will never harm my family!” Patient 0223 proclaims. “You think I’m a thug who deserves to be in prison? Well, the doctors of the Institute have done worse things. Every one of them has blood on their hands.”

The counsellor smiles wickedly, more tightly than before. The background humming subsides just a little.

“It feels like betrayal, doesn’t it, when the hands meant to heal do harm instead?” she wonders aloud.

As if forced to blink, all visibility vanishes from both Patient 0223 and the observing doctor. When sight returns, Patient 0223 is standing in the living room of his son’s house. There is no clutter, no sign of the earlier horror having taken place.

Judging from the low-hanging sun outside, it must be late afternoon. The Lieutenant’s daughter-in-law Becky is in the kitchen alone. Housework keeps her busy, but her eyes keep straying to the clock on the wall, waiting for someone to arrive home.

That someone softly opens the front door and tries to close it with minimal noise and force. The Lieutenant sees that it is Angela, the middle child of the household, dressed in a pastel yellow frock and carrying a tiny backpack.

Her attempt at entering the house unnoticed has failed. Becky is somehow already standing between Angela and the stairs leading up to the girl’s bedroom.

“Where have you been? You should’ve gotten home hours ago,” Becky speaks in a tone loud enough to hurt Angela’s and the Lieutenant’s ears.

“I was out with my friends after school. I told you about it this morning,” Angela answers, her forehead crinkled in apprehension.

“Don’t talk back to me like that! I did not raise my only daughter to be this rude,” Becky continues hollering in Angela’s face.

The Lieutenant tries to move in between mother and daughter, but he is doomed to just watch, not meant to be part of the scene himself.

Just as Becky is scolding Angela for crying, Richard also arrives home, looking drained and miserable from work. Angela tugs free of Becky’s hands and tries to hide behind Richard for protection.

“Dad, help! Please tell Mom I haven’t done anything wrong!”

Richard continues walking to the refrigerator in the kitchen. Aside from his dead eyes finding her tearful ones for a second, he shows no sign of acknowledging his daughter’s suffering.

“I can’t do anything about it, sweetie. You’ll have to put up with that – it’s how we grew up at your age anyway,” he states flatly while grabbing a beer from the fridge.

_‘That’s not true,’_ Patient 0223 tries to voice his thought. The attempt was fruitless; he cannot even feel his mouth.

Becky fixes a tight grip on Angela’s arm. The 9-year-old girl’s cries become louder and more distressing to any sane listeners around.

“Shut up!” Becky yells above the little girl’s pathetic screams.

The lights go out – then a different scene greets the Lieutenant and the silent observer. Angela is on her knees in a dimly-lit room, hands tied behind her back. Her eyes are swollen, and her cheeks and mouth are wet from crying.

Low booms resonate in the distant darkness, in time with Becky’s steps toward her daughter. She has a two-foot-long bamboo stick in hand – a device created for the main purpose of causing pain without long-lasting damage or effect on the inflicted.

“Someone help! Grandpa!” Angela shouts until her throat is sore.

“Grandpa can’t help you, you ungrateful whelp. He’s tied up and completely useless, just like you,” Becky declares. There is one last boom when she stops in front of her daughter.

_‘Stop! This isn’t real!’_ Patient 0223 tries to shout, but he cannot. He is bound to a chair, forced to watch from a distance. There is no gag over his mouth; in the first place, there is no such cavity where his mouth should be – only rough stubbled skin.

_“That’s just what mothers are like, right?”_ the counsellor’s disembodied voice asks.

Angela whines when Becky raises her bamboo-holding hand. “Grandpa, please help… please say the names and make Mom stop,” she pleads in between sobs.

_‘I can’t. I can’t…’_ The old man struggles, but the straps do not even stretch.

Wind rustles in their vicinity. Out of the darkness steps a figure not as short as Angela, but almost as fragile. Yellow-brown bare feet emerge, connected to legs made almost shapeless by loose black shorts, to a soft exposed belly and a black sleeveless leather top.

It is Sonya as Herman has never seen her. Although her eyes are still the same shade of dark brown, in place of her pupils are searing-bright, crackling sparks.

Angela turns to the newcomer. “Demon-girl, you know how to stop Mom. Please, help me!” she begs.

Sonya gazes at the child with sympathy and closes her eyes. She turns to the seated Lieutenant and opens them again, cold and commanding.

“Doctor Carter wants to know your remaining active contacts. I suggest you give them to him already,” the woman in black states.

The Lieutenant’s throat produces angry noises, but without a mouth to form words, there is no way for him to do what he should.

The thin bamboo stick cuts through the air and lands on Angela’s left shoulder with a snap. The girl bites back her first few yelps, knowing her mother will hit harder if she is noisy.

Sonya continues staring at the Lieutenant. Red marks appear on her darker-shaded skin in the same places where Becky hits Angela with the bamboo stick. Shoulders, outer arms, sides of thighs.

“You must be thinking: ‘What a barbaric culture you have, to do these things to your own children.’ But you never want to face the fact – this ‘barbaric culture’ is closer to home than you’d like to believe,” Sonya speaks in a dull tone while new red marks and lines criss-cross over her upper arms, and then forearms.

A loud crack can be heard where mother and daughter are. Angela shrieks through her tears; Becky’s last swipe upon the girl’s right side has drawn blood. Sonya lifts her own right arm out of the way, nonchalant about the leaking wound.

This time Patient 0223 earnestly fights to open his mouth. In the process, he manages to rip the unnatural skin apart.

“Stop it, already! I give up – I’ll tell you the names!”

Becky freezes in the middle of drawing back her stick-holding hand, reeling for a strike that may not happen now.

Sonya regards the Lieutenant with mild boredom, looking every bit the demon Angela called her. “Will you spell them out, too?” she asks.

“In person, if you’d please. That is a better way to show the effectiveness of this treatment,” Herman speaks up.

“Oh, shh-shoot, you’re right,” Sonya replies, mincing her exclamation in the presence of a child.

She kneels down next to Angela to undo the girl’s bonds. Angela looks up at Sonya and nods, and then the two turn to glare at Becky’s unmoving figure. A spark of electricity crackles briefly over the scene, and the vision fades to black.

* * *

Herman opens his eyes to the fluorescent-lit reality of his laboratory and toggles the current switch OFF.

On the treatment chair to his left, Patient 0223 – who looked so hardy and determined the first time he saw Sonya – is now reduced to a drooling and bawling mess. The leather loops restraining his wrists and ankles left red marks on the pale skin, signs of his pointless struggle.

Herman gets up and checks that the tape recorder is still on – good, it is. He moves to stand before the patient being questioned.

“Well, Lieutenant – are you ready to give us the names?” he asks.

There was no reply at first. The patient is taking his time trying to recover from the Restraint treatment.

_“Grandpa?”_

That high-pitched weeping made even Herman jump. On the other treatment chair, Sonya’s eyes are open but unfocused. She is still in the process of returning to herself.

Patient 0223 breathes in sharply, holds it, and lets out a ragged exhale. “Alright, I’ll tell you – for Angela’s sake.”

Herman will listen to the recording and transcribe those names later, after his lab work ends. He can leave it to Agent Stamper and other readers of 0223’s report to verify that those names do indeed belong to active enemies of the government. Two of them sound familiar, and the last one is rather unexpected.

For now, he removes his headpiece and places it on his console.

“Thank you, Grandpa…” Sonya trails off, and then an unnerving smile takes over her face. In a deeper voice, she says: “Now let’s go hurt some bullies!”

_This sure is getting out of hand_ , Herman thinks. _I don’t want to make things worse, but – it's far too soon for her to snap completely.  
_

He presses the button that gives Sonya Discipline shocks, remaining for two additional seconds. Her fists ball up, and she snarls as the high-voltage shock travels through her muscles.

“That’s enough of that, Patient 0561. Remember where you are,” Herman commands. He might as well be the one to bring her under control.

Sonya adjusts herself in her chair, shaking her head to be sure she has regained her senses. She glances down at her hands, and then raises her head.

“Dr Carter.” She recognises him on sight. His name falls from her lips so easily…

Before he can give it much thought, she turns to inspect her fellow patient. “Did he give the names and spell them out?” she asks Herman.

“Yes, he did both.”

“You _demon_ ,” Patient 0223 interjects. The war veteran’s mouth twisted in an angry grimace; Herman has seen that expression on him many times before.

In response, Sonya merely shrugs. “People have called me much worse. D’you wanna know what my own mom referred to me as?”

“Don’t – don’t you dare say a word,” the Lieutenant hisses.

That reaction intrigues Herman. He wonders if the old man associates Sonya with the vision of Angela being yelled at and hit by Becky. In that case, any further name-calling directed at the young woman may lead to new unpleasant memories for him, fabricated though the images may be.

Herman picks up the tape recorder to announce that the experiment – with 0561 manipulating Restraint to pry the answers out of 0223 – is concluded.

“The time is now –” He consults the clock on the console – it shows 2:35PM.

He pauses, dumbfounded. Sonya managed in under an hour what _he_ had been struggling to achieve over the course of more than two five-hour sessions.

After speaking procedural words and switching the recorder off, Herman uses the lab's fixed line to call the orderlies. They are to take Patient 0223 back to his ward, but not 0561 yet.

He disconnects wires and electrodes from both patients. The old Lieutenant’s eyes are dry, but his fingers and breaths are still shaky. Sonya’s own eyes aim at a higher point in the laboratory, mouthing lyrics and tapping her feet to presumably another Black Sabbath song. Perhaps music is a way to keep her original persona intact.

_What goes on in her mind that allows her to whip up recipes for fear?_ Herman wonders.

As if it isn’t difficult enough having to explain what happened in the patients’ joined minds, he will have to put into words and publish what Sonya – Patient 0561 – is capable of. He does _not_ look forward to how Director Stamper or the other doctors might react to his account of those scenes.

The orderlies soon arrive; two of them are Trent and Bob from earlier. Trent stops in his tracks; the third orderly would have crashed the empty wheelchair into the rat-faced man if he had been less alert.

“What are you doing, man? Stop gawking and pull your weight for once,” the orderly tells Trent.

“What –” Trent looks from Patient 0223 to Herman and back with wide eyes. “What happened to that veteran?”

Bob helps his colleague undo the treatment chair restraints on the newly-sedated patient.

“How should _I_ know? More importantly, do you still think the Doctor is a phony?” Bob challenges Trent.

Herman cleans up his workspace, watching over Sonya while the orderlies work to transport back to his cell. Near the end, Trent looks over his shoulder at the lab and almost sprints off after the wheelchair. Bob finishes sanitising the vacated chair and nods at Herman; he gives a slight smile to match the ghost of one on Herman’s mouth.

The double doors soon close behind the burly yet considerate man, leaving Herman and Sonya to each other. The female patient ceases her light musical renditions and gives the Doctor her full attention.

He approaches Sonya’s treatment chair and unfastens the straps. His mind tells him to be wary of sneak attacks or escape attempts, but the energy she radiates right now is calm, even welcoming to his body.

When he takes hold of her hands, she smiles bashfully and closes her legs, her face turned leftward.

Herman raises his brows. “You made a 59-year-old World War veteran cower in fear of you and call you a demon,” he points out, “and you still act shy when you’re alone with me?”

Sonya’s smile distorts into a reticent grimace when she meets Herman’s eyes.

“I didn’t claw through his memories of family because _I_ wanted to. I just thought it was something that needed to happen – for me to help you.”

She draws her knees up to her chest; she huddles into her chair, but does not remove her hands from Herman’s.

“I want to make you happy.”


	8. Expiry Extension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2020 January Nad: “I had a dream of the Doctor fucking me from behind, I’ll write a short single-chapter fic of it. It’s just one scene anyway”  
> 2020 December Nad: “I’m gonna put report excerpts as textual flavour whether people read them or not. They’re part of the story, too, and I had fun writing some of them”

**.....**

In a manner similar to Sonya’s earlier outburst at lunch, part of Herman wants to laugh out loud at her sentiment.

“You are _my patient_ ,” he asserts to remind her – and himself. “You need not concern yourself over my emotional state.”

Sonya – Patient 0561 – tries with difficulty to clasp onto Herman’s larger, longer fingers.

“If you’re sure about that, then –” she inhales and breathes out softly, “– I don’t have to be anything more. It’s not so bad here at Léry’s, especially with you looking out for me.”

_Silly 0561. I am not ‘looking out’ for you. I just want the pleasure of breaking you for myself._

He steps away, easily slipping out of her hands. He takes the tape recorder from the console, switches it on, and presses the red button. Morbid curiosity drives him to wonder what her choice would be – when faced between the mutual exclusivity of her survival versus his happiness.

He walks toward her. “You said it’s ‘not so bad here at Léry’s’. How so, 0561?”

Still seated, she smiles up at her doctor. Her eyes betray longing and craving.

“The outside world is chaotic. The people who live there are largely ignorant, hurtful, and even downright cruel. I know I could say the same for many doctors here, but you – are not like them.”

Her tears are nothing new. He has seen her cry before, heard her sobs in person and on tape. This is also far from the first time she has stated the obvious.

“You know what the sad truth is, Doctor?” Patient 0561 asks, not at all shying from the device’s microphone. “I barely even talked to those guys whose names your superiors wanted.”

He narrows his eyes at her. Is this another ploy?

“Sure, I read anarchist theory like they did, but we never were comrades, let alone friends. Whenever I tried to join in a discussion, they told me to shut up. The only reason they let me hang out with them was because I helped them maintain a passing grade.”

He grits his teeth. _Why am I getting angry at how those ungrateful imbeciles behaved toward her?_

“If they’re not even friends to you, why did you join in their dangerous law-breaking activities?” Herman demands, his fingers tight on the tape recorder.

She smiles softly and closes her eyes, channelling the eerie peace of resigning oneself to their fate.

“My choice at the time was to either join in torching up some parasitical capitalists – versus staying _safe_ at home.”

There was vitriol in the word she emphasised. When her eyes open again, her smile fades.

“My mother’s anxieties and fears had eaten away at me for all of my life. She thought to protect me from the outside world by locking me up – punishing me to keep me in line. But you saw what happened: she was just hurting me on behalf of the world.”

Sonya shifts in her seat and draws her upper body closer to Herman.

“Between staying home and doing something completely out of character, I chose to take a leap of faith – just for a chance at something different.”

He clears his throat. “So, has everything turned out the way you hoped?”

She shrugs. “Things could be better or worse – but one thing doesn’t change: I feel so much better without that woman in my life. I feel like you’ve freed me from her.”

There it is. The worst that can happen to Sonya now is if Herman sent her back to her parents’ home. But the Institute will certainly not allow it.

Sonya moves to kneel at his feet. “Now you have the answers, Dr Carter. From now on, I outlive my usefulness.” She strains her neck while looking up, trying to maintain eye contact. “Can you honestly say you’re happy with my treatment ending like this?”

_‘Because it doesn’t have to.’_

Herman looks around – that sinister voice does not belong to Sonya. Out the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a light-brown spider the size of his hand crawling over the Patient 0223 file. The moment he turns his head for a better view, the spider disappears.

He must have been more tired than he cared to admit. But that voice has a point.

Besides, now he knows for sure: she honestly values his happiness over her own life, the sentimental fool that she is.

He smiles down at her. “Your treatment may have officially ended, but you can still be of use to me.”

Her lips part – in surprise or relief, Herman does not care. He extends his free hand for her to take, which she does with both of her tiny hands. He pulls Sonya to her feet.

“In order to recreate the conditions under which we broke Patient 0223, it is reasonable to grant you the following additional privileges: a regular day-night cycle, leisure time, and climate conditioning you’re comfortable with,” he announces.

The way hope brightens up her face stirs a strange feeling that Herman cannot name.

“Do I get to listen to one heavy metal album per day?”

He tilts his head. Of course that is what she is most concerned about.

“I will check with Dr Goldfarb to see if it’s not too much. For now, let’s get you to your room.”

With that, Herman stops the recording. He puts the device on the console; he can always come back and clean up his workspace later.

He uses the fixed line to inform the ward staff: prepare to unlock Patient 0561’s room door. No, there is no need for multi-personnel guarded transport; Dr Carter has it handled.

He rummages through a compartment in the middle drawer of the console. He foregoes the mallet and fishes out the handcuffs, putting the key in the small pouch on his belt.

Sonya holds out her hands. He encloses one cuff over her left wrist.

“Turn around.”

She obeys, allowing him to restrain her hands behind her back. Something about this is making her snicker.

“What?” Herman asks, keeping his left hand on the shirt collar at the back of her neck.

The patient makes no attempt to run from the doctor as he escorts her out of the treatment theatre, strolling together to the patient ward corridors.

“I had this imagination that you’d be kinky – and here we are.”

He rolls his eyes and exhales through his nostrils. “Another of your jokes, little lady?”

In response, Sonya proceeds to lean against the doctor like a codependent housecat.

_How am I going to be respected by my colleagues if you keep embarrassing me like this?_ he grumbles.

She must have heard his thoughts. She stops playing around and walks normally, though with her eyes cast down.

“Y’know what I’ve never joked about, Dr Carter? I find you attractive, and I like many things about you. Frankly, I wish to be with you for as long as possible.”

She did not shout the words, but she pronounced each syllable clearly – so there is no mistaking what she said.

Herman clenches his jaw and avoids eye contact with his patient. The orderlies, janitors, and administrative workers often maintained some distance and looked away when he passed them in the Institute corridors. This time, the passers-by give him and Sonya a wide berth while also staring openly.

He does not know how she wants others to see the two of them, but he would indubitably like for them to appear professional. At least allow him to prove that this patient is under his complete control.

* * *

When they reach the corridor to 0561’s ward, the guards were waiting as ordered. However, standing before the steel door is a middle-aged man in a suit, with wiry reading glasses hanging from the blazer’s breast pocket.

Herman’s legs slow to a halt, and his heart sinks into his stomach. Otto Stamper, in the flesh, was anticipating 0561’s return to her room.

“Dr Carter,” he greets, his usually-cold face inscrutable.

“Director Stamper,” Herman responds. “I was just escorting Patient 0561 to her ward. I have amendments to make with regards to her living conditions…”

Stamper takes relaxed strides toward the two. Herman hazards a glance at Sonya; her face seems blank, but there is a slight frown, judging by the angles of her brows.

“So this is her, huh? The devil-worshipping anarchist,” Stamper says, giving the young woman an appraising look.

She nods at the man in charge of this building and much more. “Hail Satan,” she replies casually to play her part.

“That’s my patient, sir.”

“Yours and no one else’s, from what I’ve read,” Stamper adds. His eyes suggest approval aimed at Sonya and her doctor. “Don’t worry, I have no intentions of going against your specific instructions – especially when they helped lead to some hugely eye-opening results.”

Herman always maintains a degree of caution around his so-called mentor. The man left him with tools and experimental materials to use “at his discretion”. Still, it’s not like Herman can forget the events of the farmhouse anytime soon.

Men like Blanchard and Stamper are just waiting to catch him in the act again.

“I was watching the show today – not in person like I used to, but from the security room. The cryptos were at their wits’ end, grasping at every straw. So I invited them to watch your session with the Lieutenant.”

The Institute director moves to stand in front of Sonya, knees bent so that his face is almost eye-level with hers. He sounds so casual when he talks, but his motto goes: “Information is everything, and knowledge is power.” Any word uttered carelessly can be used against the speaker.

Herman risks sporting a small, maybe polite smile. “I hope our performance was to your liking,” he speaks in an even tone.

A grin – the first semblance of emotion – lights up the man’s face. He straightens his legs and takes a step back.

“Are you kidding me? Ingram and Miller went nuts when they wrote down the names you made the Lieutenant spell out. Those geeks are intense when they make important discoveries, and they have you two to thank.”

“Oh – it’s more Dr Carter than me,” Sonya exclaims, nudging the doctor with her right elbow.

The friendliness remains on Stamper’s mouth, but his eyes are all business.

“Whatever new instructions you have regarding 0561’s care, I’ll ask the guys to follow them – within reason, that is.”

“Of course, sir.” Herman nods at his mentor. “I intend for those conditions to help in upcoming experiments with her.”

“… mind,” Sonya adds.

“Mind! Experiments with her mind,” Herman corrects himself.

“Her mind, of course,” Stamper chuckles in amusement, but adds some final words before leaving the patient ward area: “For the sake of our country and our freedom, I sincerely hope you will continue to produce results.”

It is only when Stamper is no longer in the corridor vicinity that Herman motions the guards to unlock the 0561 ward door. He also takes the small key out of his belt pouch to unlock the patient’s cuffs.

He ushers Sonya into the room, but she keeps holding onto his left hand.

_‘I didn’t think you’d be scared of a pencil-pusher like Stamper,’_ she whispers through their odd electric connection.

_I’m not scared of him,_ Herman affirms. _He just gives me the feeling that I’m being watched. And my memories associated with that feeling are not pleasant._

Sonya hugs his hand – in effect, pressing it to her chest. Awkwardly, he can feel the soft flesh beneath her shirt.

_‘I understand.’_

Herman glances at his watch and pulls his hand back. “Well, I’m off – got your living arrangements to discuss and all.”

She folds her arms over her chest in the absence of his warmth. She does miss him already.

“Take care, Dr Carter. I hope to see you again soon.”

He nods and waves at Patient 0561, hurriedly closing the door to her ward. After the guards help with locking, he takes a few audible steps away. He stops and strains his ears, looks at his watch properly this time – ah, yes.

Six, five, four, three, two, one… A throat-tearing yelp can be heard from behind the door.

“GAWD MOTHER FUCKING DAMMIT!”

Herman smirks to himself. He resumes returning to his lab for end-of-day clean-up.

_I never explicitly promised to stop those scheduled Order shocks for her._

* * *

(EXCERPTS)

\-----

** PATIENT 0561 REPORT #2 BY DR H.C. **

**[…] Follow-up of mind-link using Restraint Class II … able to change her previous memories of the incident. […]**

**0561 was able to maintain control of what viewers see in the mind-linked treatment… including construction of fictitious memories and images…**

**Proposal: put 0561’s memory-manipulating abilities to use against other patients at the Institute. Keep utilising Restraint treatments to allow her access into their memories.**

**Result: (refer to Patient 0223 Report #3 by Dr H.C.)**

**[…] Patient 0561 made it clear that any further attempt to pry her compatriots’ names out of her will be futile. […]**

**Patient 0561 Status: ACTIVE*  
* Not as a primary subject of experimental interrogation, but as an assisting factor, especially when interrogating difficult patients. In future reports, may be referred to as ‘Sonya’.**

**Further Instructions: […]**

\-----

** PATIENT 0223 REPORT #3 BY DR H.C. **

**[…] planned to use Restraint Class II to retrieve the remaining 3 names from Patient 0223’s mind. However, earlier that morning […]**

**Although this is my 3rd experiment with him, 0223 became the first patient at Léry’s to undergo Restraint Class II treatment in which ‘Sonya’ takes an active information-seeking role. […]**

**Description of ‘Sonya’ accessing patient’s memories: [CLASSIFIED]**

**[…] Given the likelihood of other patients’ prejudice toward ‘Sonya’, I will henceforth advise staff to blindfold patients before they are brought into sessions where she provides her assistance.**

**Patient 0223 Status: [DATA EXPUNGED]**

\-----

**Patient 0348. F, 34**

**British immigrant into the US. Profession supposedly ‘journalist’ – arrested when found collecting information on top-secret government technology at Groom Lake, Nevada.**

**Personal life: married to American husband (37), with one son (11). Patient reluctant to discuss domestic conditions, but Restraint Class III (refer to Patient 0348 Report #4) reveals she is estranged from these family members.**

-

TRANSCRIPT OF P0348 SESSION #4 BY DR H.C. AND ‘SONYA’

**(Patient 0348 sedated as with previous treatment sessions. Orderlies also followed up instruction to blindfold patient prior to session.)**

**(Restraint Class II used to allow Dr H.C. and ‘Sonya’ to see into 0348’s memories. No coherent words were recorded during the Restraint treatment.)**

[…]

0348: “Vince? Oh, my sweet baby boy, how did you end up here, too?”

Sonya: “… Don’t call me that. Dad and I haven’t seen you in months. Where _were_ you?”

0348: “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry – you know how it is when Mommy is so busy with her work.”

Sonya: “Yeah, you used to say it all the time. You won’t even tell us what you were working on, going away for weeks on end.”

0348: “Vince – I’m sorry, that’s what I had to do. I’m an investigative journalist. I have a reputation to keep –”

Sonya: “YOU have a reputation to keep?” [scoffs]

[…]

0348: “Why are we still talking about your life at home? Do you realise where we are? The bad men have caught us! They’ve tortured me, and they will do the same to you.”

Sonya: “That’s the problem with you. You say one thing when you’re really thinking of something else. You think you can somehow find a weak link in this Institute and escape, and then you’ll work on some huge exposé of this government black site. And when the media celebrates you as some hero of truth or whatever, Dad and I will be cast aside as always, only seeing you on TV or reading about you in the papers.”

0348: “That’s – sweetheart, I would never –”

Sonya: “No wonder Dad left you.”

0348: [slow breaths, sobs] “… You don’t even care that he’s making some other woman your new mommy?”

Sonya: “At least she shows up to my basketball games, or takes care of me when Dad is stuck at the store! What’s so new or shocking about unfaithful husbands, anyway?”

[…]

0348: [shrieking, wailing for 7 seconds] […]

Sonya: “There, there, Mom. Tell them everything you found out at the Groom Lake facility. Then at least these Institute people will free me.”

[…]

**Patient 0348 Status: [DATA EXPUNGED]**

\-----

**Patient 0154. M, 28**

**Local record claims natural US citizenship, but no matching record exists in the United States Census of 1960. Suspected spy for the [REDACTED] government. Arrested before he can gain further clearance into the Defense Communications Agency of the DoD.**

-

TRANSCRIPT OF P0154 SESSION #2 BY DR H.C. AND ‘SONYA’

[…]

0154: “Listen, I’ll give you everything right now. You don’t even have to get in my head, okay?”

Dr H.C.: “You sound nervous indeed, Patient 0154. Then again, how else shall we confirm the authenticity of your information?”

0154: “Of course I’m nervous! That pet demon of yours? I heard all about her, and I know exactly where she’s from. Did your guys steal her from the Khmer Rouge?”

Sonya: “Hey asshole, my parents migrated to the States to _escape_ the regime.”

0154: [short pause, laughing] “Oh, come on. You’re not impressing anyone with your flawless American accent. In your heart, you’re loyal to the communist cause.”

Sonya: [4-second silent pause] “You dare to fucking claim you’ve heard all about me? I am an _anarchist_ , not a communist, you dense shithead. My loyalty is not to any state, but to one person.”

0154: [tense breathing, whimpering]

Sonya: “Doctor Carter, is the Restraint setting ready to go?”

Dr H.C.: “Certainly.”

0154: “Stop! NO!” [unintelligible, screaming]

[…]

**Patient 0154 Status: [DATA EXPUNGED]**

\-----

(END OF EXCERPTS)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a sort of No Entity contemporary AU drafted and stored away, where Carter is a Psychology lecturer and Sonya is his student. Thing is, I’m not sure if anyone wants to read that. If I do end up writing it, there may be cameos by other DBD killers and survivors as well.  
> In any case, my bird-brain muse tells me to continue work on Outside The Trials stories after I’ve completed writing this fic.


	9. Intellect King and Emotion Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self-beta'd, composed in first person as usual (I sure hope I didn't goof lol). Bird-brain wants me to write to the end even when I have a professional accounting exam coming up on March 2nd.  
> Anyway. More Léry’s Memorial Institute happenings and other interactions before we go to the smut.

**.....**

When formulating new treatments based on noted-down findings and theories, Herman would have administered them directly to the Institute’s reluctant patients. But with a willing subject to perform them on, making tweaks and adjustments to experimental ECT procedures becomes faster and easier.

She even has her own headpiece now – or ‘wire hat’, as she calls it.

“Doctor, how much anaesthetic did you jab into my bloodstream? I feel like I’m seeing you and myself from farther outside my body,” Sonya numbly speaks, her figure sagging atop her usual chair.

Herman traces one finger along her forearm without touching. He smiles – static crackles over her skin even before he switches on the current.

“You may still be experiencing after-effects from our Order wavelength tests earlier today.”

Even though ‘earlier’ was more than twelve hours ago.

“Unfortunately, this affects the reliability of our upcoming study. At this rate, our choice would be to either mess around with a Restraint connection, or to let the medication wear off and call it a night.”

Sonya makes an “ugh” noise and screws her eyes shut. “Well, that’s a waste. You got me high on anaesthetics for nothing.”

“Benzodiazepine and ketamine cost a little more than nothing around here, but _you_ were able to enjoy them for free. Your former classmates missed out.”

Her laugh afterward is half-hearted. He personally prefers her more malicious or sardonic laughter, which he could hear when she lorded over their pathetic patients.

For now, they wait out the effects of Sonya’s ketamine dose. Soon Herman will call for two servings of dinner to be delivered to his lab.

* * *

It is a Saturday evening, so the corridors of Léry’s are sparse in terms of foot traffic. The guards, orderlies, and nurses on duty at these odd hours have been accustomed to seeing Sonya walking beside Herman – no handcuffs needed to keep her from escaping.

_She won’t run away from me._

On their way back to the patient ward area, he catches a glimpse of the Institute grounds through a hallway window. The sun has set hours ago, so the outdoor lamps are illuminating the fog that spills over grassy fields and footpaths.

When attention returns to his immediate surroundings, the indoor vinyl flooring also appears to be piled on by the same thick fog.

“Do you get cold in your ward lately?” he asks Sonya.

“Is that an invitation?” she flirts jokingly. Still, her face takes on a studious look as she regards the indoor fog. “But if you feel you might be going crazy, you’re not alone. Besides, I would also wonder how this damn fog got indoors. Do people not shut the doors and windows on weekends?”

It is interesting how she swiftly finds explanations for strange phenomena. Perhaps her quick adjustment to new realities is what helped her manipulate the Restraint workings…

When they reach the patient ward corridor, they are greeted by the occasional screams of other patients. The guard on key duty – his nametag reads ‘R. Tillerson’ – leaves his station and unlocks 0561’s door with a sour face.

After Patient 0561 is locked securely in her room and the guard returns to his designated area, Herman turns to face the exit.

A man stands in the way. Tall but not towering, slim but not gangly, with side-parted short black hair and wearing a two-piece suit. Doctor D. Moreau is staring Herman eye-to-eye.

“Good evening, Dr Moreau,” Herman greets him. The two doctors take a few strides and meet in the middle, facing each other down. “You don’t normally stay back this late.”

“I had better places to be, and I did not opt to have on-site accommodation like you,” Moreau emphasises the last few words. As if someone so dedicated to his work that he lives at his workplace is so sinful.

Herman plasters on a polite smile. “So what brings you here, now that you have no better place to be?”

On a normal day, Dr Moreau gives off an unconcerned, cheerful energy; it is his basic attitude toward work here at Léry’s. That cheer is absent now.

“I am not here by choice, Carter. You may be receiving heaps of praise from people who are not involved in our sort of work. But we both know that your ‘results’ depended heavily on a little girl.”

Herman could not help but laugh, managing to stop himself short. _“Our sort of work”, Moreau? What do you even do that works?_ he thinks, but keeps the incredulous remark unspoken.

“I don’t see the problem with using a patient against others in order to uncover truths.”

“Must I spell it out for you, Doctor Carter?” Moreau spits out along with a scowl. “I am far from the only one to see – that girl is the enemy, and she has got you wrapped around her little finger.”

Herman almost chokes from trying not to laugh. Moreau really has not paid attention to how _Sonya_ was the one clamouring to please _Herman_.

“If that’s what you see, then I cordially invite you to come take a look inside our heads to affirm if that truly is the case.” Herman ends his words with a flourish that usually captivated teachers’ and professors’ attentions.

Moreau’s face pales; his eyes are perceptibly wider.

“I’ll have you know I don’t take threats lightly,” he barks out, planting his leather-soled feet on the corridor floor.

Herman’s left hand tingles, just as before. A spark races within him in restless search for an outlet.

The smirk of morbid curiosity takes over his face. “Oh, that was a joke, Dr Moreau.”

He pools the crackling energy in his left hand and releases it in his so-called colleague’s direction. Moreau lets out a sharp cry from the shock.

“Now this? _This_ is a threat.”

Herman constructs an image of Sonya pointing the business end of a fountain pen at Moreau’s throat. He stumbles back but manages not to fall on his rear. He glares at Herman, and for now has the sense to turn tail and leave with no further words.

Herman pauses for a dramatic beat, then looks over his shoulder at the guards in their station. They hurry back to their radios and magazines.

_This time, I don’t mind being watched. Let them witness my power._

“Hey Doc, was that Moreau out there?” Sonya asks from behind the metal door of her ward; her voice is amplified in his ears by their connection.

“Yes, and he just left,” Herman replies. “I’ll see you tomorrow, 0561.”

“Alright. Later.”

A less-forced smile forms on Herman’s lips as he strolls to his bedroom. It does not shock him that Dr Moreau is ignorant and tactless enough to accuse him of enabling treason. After all, knowledge is power, and an abundance of knowledge can transform anyone who seeks them into a threat.

Herman learned so much from Sonya. She is a deep fountain of knowledge…

 _‘… To drink from,’_ the familiar sinister voice proffers.

He stops smiling. That distinct whisper is only ever present when he is alone or when he is dealing with Sonya. He can more clearly sense the malevolent force whenever he sees abnormally-large spiders, or dark plants with sharp-ended tendrils and angular stalks.

In the solitude of his bedroom, Herman unclothes and goes for a cold shower in the attached bathroom. He is aware that the force is somewhat intelligent, capable of plotting things. He paid attention, because lately there is a rising frequency of erotic and even disturbing dreams involving that oddball among patients.

 _But I know Sonya – the_ real _her. I know who she is when I’m awake._

It is daily routine for Sonya to flirt with Herman, to make it obvious she is interested in him. She occasionally displays comical roughness, pulling at his necktie or jokingly wrestling him. But she never intentionally forces herself on him.

Not that she could overpower him anyway.

* * *

In the three more weeks that passed, winter has fully rolled in. The workers and guards who had the outdoor and gate shift this Sunday morning are up against the arduous task of shovelling snow off footpaths and driveways.

While they suffer the frigid air and thickening fog at building entrances, Herman gets dressed up with somewhere to go. Navy-blue slacks, lighter-brown suede shoes, and light cream collared shirt beneath a black turtleneck sweater.

His first step was the facility cafeteria. He takes one boxed meal from the counter, heading next to the patient wards. Sonya should be receiving her morning meal as well, but her tray is untouched when he reaches her door.

“You don’t wanna go in there yet, Dr Carter. Randy and Dennis got an earful for opening the door while the patient was on the can,” the friendly guard with tan leathery skin and curly black hair and beard, Jimmy Garcia, informs Herman.

Herman smiles at the young man; he is accustomed to Herman visiting the wards on Sunday mornings, in addition to (not often) personally taking Sonya out to the treatment theatre.

“She won’t yell at me,” Herman states, to which Jimmy responds with a raised eyebrow and a tilted head, hands on his waist. Herman convincingly adds: “Most of the time.”

“Dr Carter, are you out there?” Sonya calls from behind the door. “I hope you have some painkillers. My bowels are fucking exploding.”

“Well, that’s not healthy bowel activity.”

Herman does not have those pills on hand, but he can use the guard station phone to order some from the nurses. Following that task, he returns to Patient 0561’s ward door, which Jimmy is helping to unlock.

“I’ll make sure you lovebirds are not disturbed, alright?” Jimmy says with a wink.

“Don’t test me, Garcia,” Herman warns.

The guard steps back, hands raised with palms forward as a gesture of “no harm intended”.

Herman brings the patient’s uneaten food with him on the way in. She cannot take painkillers on an empty stomach.

* * *

With breakfast and pills out of the way, Sonya puts on the cassette ‘Difficult To Cure’ by the band Rainbow. She sets up the chessboard Herman gifted her: a novelty set where the carved wooden pieces were modelled after North American birds of prey.

He lets Sonya have the white pieces, just like the first time they played. Unlike that time, however, she now plays with more care and confidence.

“I see you’ve been reading up on opening strategies. That is pleasant to see,” Herman comments.

Sonya plays at hiding from his remark. “I was just reading the books you loaned me. Besides, you’re the player I’m practicing with, and you’re really good. You help me get better.”

Those last words bring a nostalgic smile to his face. In this line of work, his ‘patients’ never know what’s actually best for them. But this young woman is so unlike all those other patients.

Herman returns to the game before him, playing in earnest now that his opponent displays her challenge. She still softly swears or curses when he takes her stronger pieces, such as a peregrine falcon knight or a barn owl bishop. Although, as much as he steels his face from showing any emotion, she also shields hers. Unless he charges up their connection of minds, Sonya remains unreadable to him.

What a curious little masterpiece she is. None of his fellow ‘doctors’ could offer as much intellectual stimulation as she does.

_She deserves to stand on equal ground beside me._

“Aw hell. Ya checked me, mate,” Sonya slips into a British accent. Considering she has gotten into the heads of at least four patients sent from across the pond, this is one of those things that happen on random occasions.

The two stand up and shake hands, after which Sonya theatrically collapses onto her single bed. Herman moves the guest chair so he can sit while talking to her (instead of bending over at an uncomfortable angle).

“Don’t be so down. It took many years to get to where I am,” he says softly.

“Hah. This is not because I lost.”

She rolls to face up, and briefly meets Herman’s eyes.

“I was almost wishing I could show those assholes at Brown how much I’ve changed. But as long as –” She pauses, choosing her words carefully. “As long as you can use me, I’d rather be here at Léry’s.”

Such controlled pretence at detachment. She never implied, never suggested out loud that he needed her. Since the beginning, she saw herself as expendable. She claims not to care if he killed her.

In fact, maybe that is what she wants.

On impulse, Herman encloses his right hand over her little neck. She inhales sharply and uses her tiny hands to clutch his wrist and forearm, but does not force that limb off. Her lips are parted as her dark eyes find his, wide not with horror but enthusiasm.

He releases her neck and slowly pulls his hand away. “That look is unbecoming of you, little lady.”

Sonya cackles and pushes her hands against the bed surface. “You’re always so awkward about how I get aroused by you.” She adjusts herself so her now-upright body is facing Herman.

“I’ve been meaning to ask: what was your reaction when you found out I was masturbating to the thought of you?”

The upfront manner of her questioning makes him cross his arms and look at a far wall of the patient ward.

_Oh, bother._

For all the times they have shared thoughts and memories through Restraint procedures and tests, Herman has never allowed her to see that side of him. Not even after she allowed him to see the faces of her former classmates clearly.

But the sinister presence insidiously questions his hesitancy. _‘Why hold back, Doctor Carter? Afraid of your own feelings?’_

Curse that thing for trying to needle into him as if he was a patient.

“You won’t laugh if I tell you?” Herman asks Sonya.

“Now that you mention this, I’ll try not to,” she responds with a mischievous smile. Her eyes sparkle with curiosity.

“When I was listening to the recording for your words, I –” Herman looks away from her again. “You can say my head was scandalised, but my body involuntarily reacted to your sounds.” This is embarrassing, but he tries to remember he has been caught doing something worse.

Sonya does not interrupt. That eager look is in her eyes again, coupled with the stillness of a passive yet discerning interrogator.

Herman puts on a smile despite himself.

“I would term it as maintenance of my human vessel. Your voice tempted my body, so I hurried from my office to the privacy of my room.” Sonya wrinkles her face in a smile as he tells the story. “And in the shower stall of my room, I proceeded to find release while listening to the sounds of _your_ self-pleasuring.”

When he ends with a nonchalant gesture, Sonya giggles softly.

“I’m flattered to hear I could have that effect on you, Dr Carter,” she remarks.

She reaches for Herman’s hand, but hesitates. He turns up his left hand, where energy crackles in the palm. Her right hand clasps over the sparks, unfazed.

The smile as she speaks into his head matches her bashful voice: _‘If it’s not too much trouble, I would like to hear_ your _voice when you’re pleasured.’_

Herman’s mouth goes dry. He never had use for romance in his younger days. Instead of heartbreaks from irrational desire and illusions, he focused on feeding his hunger for knowledge. Never had he found a person as determined to seek knowledge as he was (who did not see him as an employee or tool).

Sonya saw him as a person – a fellow brilliant mind. She volunteered to be his tool, but why limit herself to that? She could be so much more.

Yes: Sonya is in this position today because Herman was curious enough to find out how she differs from all his other patients. In fact, she stands out even among his colleagues.

A sentimental fool she may be, but an imbecile she definitely is not.

Herman lowers his face slightly and presses his forehead against hers.

 _You are currently bleeding, Sonya. But I could arrange for – an_ experiment _in my bedroom, to take place a few nights from now._

He feels her eyes widen, and she later blinks. _‘There won’t be any repercussions against you?’_

He snorts lightly. The fool is more worried for him than for herself, as usual.

_Stamper never took action against Dufort or the Tillerson brothers, even after the things they’ve done. Besides, you remember how much the Director values our work._

_‘Hmm – if you say so, then.’_

Herman straightens his posture. Sonya parts from him, appraising him with soft eyes.

_‘I trust you, Doctor Herman Carter.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy ships it. And even the Entity has been taunting Herman. How about that?  
> If anyone is curious, the bird of prey designs for the novelty chess set are as follows.  
> King = Bald eagle  
> Queen = Red-tailed hawk  
> Bishop = Barn owl  
> Knight = Peregrine falcon  
> Rook = Californian condor  
> Pawn = Loggerhead shrike


	10. Vermilion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are finally arriving at the smut I’ve always visualised.  
> Other than on my Tumblr, feel free to gush about the Doctor - uh, I mean chat with me on Discord at flootist#7222

**.....**

Friday night of the following week. After having dealt with an unexciting patient, Herman cleans up his workplace and person. The patient ward corridor awaits him.

From along the path, he can see the orderly Trent trying to peek through Patient 0561’s viewing window as if she was a circus attraction. Jimmy has been trying to steer the rat-faced man away, but he does not budge – at least, not until Herman’s purposeful gait can be felt throughout the corridor.

“No! Not Carter again!”

“Please, I’ve had enough for one day!”

Trent tenses up and jerks his head in Herman’s direction. Seeing the doctor, he sprints away, pushing past the curly-haired and -bearded guard.

Jimmy shakes his head in exasperation as he and Herman stare after the lecherous yet cowardly rat.

“Has anyone ever mentioned you got an overwhelming presence?”

Herman responds to Jimmy’s joke with a flat smile.

The guard unlocks the secured door, and the two men are greeted with the sight of a blanket bundled in the shape of an oversized egg. The bundle splits open at the top, where fingers wriggle like the legs of a larva from some horror movie.

“Yes, terrifying,” Herman says as the blanket falls to reveal Sonya, the backs of her hands covering the lower half of her face.

He pats her on the shoulder and she drops her hands to her sides. Her sock-wearing feet slip into patients’ shoes, and she is ready to join him for more than an after-dinner walk.

“I know you’re there, you bastard! You want a piece of me, bring it!”

Outside her room, Sonya eyes the door to Patient 0637’s ward. “I didn’t realise I had competition,” she deadpans to Herman.

Jimmy snickers behind one fist while his other hand locks the 0561 ward door.

“As if you need to worry. That loudmouthed patient is barely decent company,” Herman responds in a similarly detached tone.

“If anyone asks, this is confidential experimentation, right?” Jimmy asks.

The doctor nods at him. “Correct.” He does not need to look at Sonya to know her poker face has broken.

While crossing from the wards to the less public staff residence wing, Herman and Sonya had to walk in proximity of Dr Dufort. How predictable for him to be in the middle of an inappropriate jabber with a nurse.

When the less-professional doctor notices Herman together with an unrestrained patient, he appears to want to call it out. Though, perhaps for his own good, Dufort instead changed his mind and bade the nurse good night. He made a show of leaving the Institute’s work area for the parking lot.

_He has always been far from worthy._ Herman smiles and places a hand on the back of Sonya’s neck. _No one can handle this patient like I do._

* * *

Having disproportionate focus on work caused Herman to overlook an important purchase he should have made on a day off in Michaelstown.

“D’you have condoms, Dr Carter?”

Herman opens the bedside drawer. He still has his bottle of lubricant – now nearly finished – but no condoms.

On the outside, Sonya levels him with an unamused stare. But he knows better than anyone what excruciating horrors she has in store for her target’s mind, when enabled access with Restraint connection.

“I – didn’t have time to buy them.” A weak excuse, he knows.

“What, Léry’s doesn’t have its own pharmacy?”

“You know this place isn’t _that_ kind of hospital.”

Sonya clicks her tongue and starts to turn away. Herman holds her by one shoulder.

“I have enough control over my body; I can hold my orgasm at bay for as long as I need to.”

It is already embarrassing enough to say those words aloud. In response, he has to face Sonya’s ‘Interrogator’ expression of “you’ll need more than those words to convince me” tonight.

This was why Herman saw sexual intercourse and relationships as hassles he didn’t need in his life. But he had been looking forward to tonight’s experiment, and he was sure Sonya felt the same.

“You have faith in me, don’t you?” he questions her this time, hands moving to loosely interlock his fingers with hers.

Sonya looks from Herman’s face down his body, and then back up. Now that she is alone with the doctor who oversaw her use and development, she makes the practical decision of moving along with the experiment.

“Okay, I will trust you.” And there it is, just as he predicted: she grasps his patterned purple tie in one hand and pulls it down. “But if you _do_ end up shooting inside me, you’d better hurry to the fucking dispensary for contraceptives.”

Herman gives a smug, confident smile despite bending his body at an uncomfortable angle.

“We shall see if that indeed happens, hmm?”

At a touch of his hand, Sonya releases the tie, and he can loosen it from his shirt collar. Tucking that accessory inside his vest was more than just for style, but safety is never guaranteed. The patient makes up for the height difference with jumping power.

“Now, back to business. I have showered not long ago – now it’s your turn.”

Sonya nods, obediently stripping her patient uniform as well as her plain undergarments provided by the Institute. Herman turns away and makes no hurry to fetch a fresh towel out of a closet drawer.

He is not fooling anyone, least of all himself. He has to see her nude eventually. The nurses attending to Patient 0561 already have.

Herman decides to make it quick, almost tossing the towel at his partner of the night. _‘Thanks,’_ she says before padding barefooted to the adjoining bathroom. It relieves him that she doesn’t tease him for his shyness.

While Sonya cleans up under water that takes time to heat up, Herman goes to check that his bedroom door and windows are safely locked. He switches on the small bedside table lamp to replace the too-bright-for-this-purpose main room lighting.

He paces a little in anticipation, but then takes the pocket watch out of his vest and sets it on the bedside table. He removes his shoes and socks, and relaxes against the pillows and headboard of his bed.

Amid sounds of scrubbing and splashing behind the closed bathroom door, he thinks about the care instructions he gave at the end of Patient 0561’s first appointment with him. He wanted her for himself, even back then… but not simply for tonight’s purpose, no.

Herman approached work under his own code of ethics. When his less-competent colleagues faced obstacles with their patients, they treated them as dead ends. To him, such setbacks are mere detours; in the end, no matter the cost, he gets results.

Trapped by their cultural biases and baser instincts, those men can never handle Sonya the way he does. They don’t deserve to have her.

* * *

The bathroom door opens. “You’re not undressed yet?” Sonya asks, mostly dried and seemingly modest with the towel covering her chest down to the middle of her knees. Her thick black hair retains some moisture; the strands noticeably fall over her ears, nearly down to her shoulders.

Herman smirks at her; now, he is prepared. “You want this present? Come unwrap it.”

Sonya untucks the towel and flings it aside in one motion. He takes in the sight of her – not slender with her noticeable belly and large hips, an average chest size – and remembers to breathe when she saunters over and climbs into bed.

She first unbuttons his pinstriped vest, and then his shirt. It is almost cute how she thinks she can hide how she is biting her lower lip right now; her eyes rake over shoulders she knew to be broad, and arms she described as beefy.

Though she delights in his fit dark physique, her disciplined little hands keep working; they move to unbuckle his belt and unfasten his formal slacks. When she pulls down the trousers and later his boxers, her mouth twitches in a mischievous smile.

_‘Is this how you normally are in bed? Passive?’_

Herman exhales through his nostrils. His right hand cups her jaw, fingers firm but not tight on her chin.

_I prefer to observe before making my move, dear._

His hand travels from her jaw, down her neck, to the outer side of her breast which he squeezes lightly.

_‘Mhmm. Observe_ this _.’_

Sonya drags her hands across his naked skin, down his front and sides. He can see some of her old scars across her shoulder blades, longer marks starting at the top of her bum. She feels up his back, sliding her palms over his rear and alongside his spine, inhaling deeply while her nose ghosts over his warm, exposed torso. With her legs straddling his lap, she elevates enough so that her face is level with his.

So that their lips can meet.

Their eyes close. When their mouths lock, Sonya’s arms tighten over Herman’s upper back. His hands seek to feel her as well, and they rest comfortably on her lower back. He can feel her desperate breaths against his face – even a hint of her tongue trying to poke through.

_Ah. Nothing less from an anarchist._

Herman responds by pressing the tip of his tongue against hers, and her body arches. Her breasts squish against his chest, and her vulva trails discharge below his abdomen.

His rational mind is still in control, so he lets out a soft laugh. Sonya never ceases to amuse him.

She parts from him, anxious eyes searching his face. “You will stop me from going too far with you – right, Doctor?”

His hands run along her soft arms, yellow-brown skin covered with fine black hairs. Darker, larger hands guide the tiny pair lower – to his crotch.

“It’s ‘Herman’ tonight,” he tells her, leaning back against his pillows and the headboard.

There is brief joy on Sonya’s face, followed by impatient lust. She moves down along his figure and adjusts for optimal oral position. With her eyelids half-lowered as if dreaming, she licks up his cock and welcomes it home.

The wetness and warmth – and the sight of his partner taking him in her mouth – feel luxurious, special.

Herman gasps when her tongue runs along the underside of his shaft. It feels so good having Sonya around him, sucking and teasing with her tongue, moving her mouth back and forth. After a few moments, even when his penis is fully erect, she still tries to fit as much of it as possible into her mouth.

He runs a hand through her hair and pulls lightly. “Don’t force yourself.”

His ambitious yet obedient partner withdraws, leaving one last kiss on the tip. As curious as he is about where she learned to do all this, now is not the time for such thoughts.

Herman takes Sonya’s hands and supports her upper body while she positions her vaginal opening over the head of his penis. She did not even ask to use lubricant – not that she needed any additional slick.

Her lower legs provide a firm foundation while her thighs move back and forth, easing Herman’s hard cock into her tight vulva. His eyes do not shy away this time; he takes in her beauty. The fuzz on her pubic area, the rolls of fat on her sides, her soft-yet-strong limbs.

He suppresses a groan as his cock goes in farther, deeper… How deep _is_ she?

Only when her damp labial lips reach just an inch over the base of his cock did his tip hit her cervix. Air huffs past her shapely mouth; she is feverish with lust but not completely satisfied.

_How do Sonya and I fit so well together?_ he wonders. _Is this – is this real?_

_‘Excellent question,’_ he hears the faintest whisper before the sinister energy disappears.

Sonya rubs her hands up his arms and anchors them on his shoulders. There is sensuality in the clutch of her fingers on his trap muscles, combined with her moving up and down his shaft. She tightens hard around him at the deepest level, pulls her pelvis upward, and loosens her walls to let him in again. He feels up her fleshy ass and sides before cupping her soft breasts, testily thumbing her nipples.

“Mmmhh,” the breathy moan escapes her throat. The more he touches her, the hotter she gets.

“You can’t be doing _all_ the work, dear. I’m done observing.”

He begins to thrust his groin up, to meet her harder every time she descends. He easily matches up to her rhythm, and is rewarded with further soft vocalisations. Oh, he will hit her spots.

He will give her everything she needs, and more.

At one point she stops and clenches hard all around him, holding him tightly. Her exclamation of bliss comes in a few forms: a beautiful cry, the fluttering of her heart, and the spasms of her vulvar walls.

One of her hands strokes the back of his neck, fingering the skin just over the top of his spine. _‘Your turn, Herman. I want to hear you cum.’_

In between heated breaths, Herman matches her smile.

He kisses one corner of her forehead and motions for her to get up. The surrounding cold air shocks his member, but he knows it will be warmed again soon.

He instructs her to lie face-down with arms hanging off the edge of his bed. She readily obeys his light touches that guide her to bend her knees and raise her thick hips. Satisfied with the position, his fingers clutch her rear cheeks, mindful of her old scars. He also uses his bent legs to keep hers in place while he penetrates her once again. The sweetness of her high whine accompanies the soft warmth that takes him in.

This is not enough.

Herman sets a slow pace to start with, pushing into his partner with care. Then he pauses.

_How badly do you want me, dear?_

The sound Sonya makes is between a mewl and a growl, frustrated by the stillness.

_‘I want you_ bad _, Herman. More than anything.’_

To emphasise her words, she grinds her ass against his crotch while tightening her inner walls around his shaft.

A wave of electricity travels through his left hand and into his partner. She yelps from the pain; while her position prevents her from curling into herself, her muscles still go tight from the accidental shock.

“Are you alright, Sonya?” Herman asks. He places his right hand over her right shoulder blade, fingertips squeezing a little in apology.

After a few breaths, she starts moving against him again.

“I want to hear you – please, Herman.”

He would be a monster if he turned her down after she begged so nicely. So he presses hard into her, fingertips and nails digging into her deliciously thick ass and side.

“Yes – yes –” her voice urges him while her pussy clenches even tighter.

Herman keeps on plunging into her, faster, harder. Soon he grunts in time with her desperate little moans. His precum mingles with her vaginal fluids, making this process of intercourse hot and messy.

He does not remember sex ever feeling _this_ good.

He breathes more heavily as he continues pounding into Sonya’s tight pussy. How he wishes he could see her face right now – but her voice makes up for it, the pitch rhythmically climbing higher.

He hammers hard into the pulsating walls. Her high moans turn into screams, and he cannot tell if those are sounds are of pain or pleasure. Either way, her noises bring gratification to his ears.

After a few more rapid thrusts – in a measure of self-control – Herman pulls out of Sonya and resumes pumping his cock with one hand. Within three strokes, he can feel pleasure begin to surge throughout him: from his core, along his nerves, down to his scalp and tips of fingers and toes.

An intense groan rasps out of him the same time thick white liquid spurts against the middle of his partner’s back. He lets go of his cock, breathes in deep and lets out another fulfilled sigh, basking in the afterglow of shared desire.

He hopes she heard him and is satisfied by the findings. Otherwise, he will have to repeat the experiment… not that the idea disgusts him as much as it used to.

The two of them catch their breaths in the relative stillness after their lovemaking. Though after a short while, they decide they have to get cleaned up.

Sonya bends at the elbows to push up from the edge of the bed. Herman supports her with his relatively clean hand, helping her get to her feet. She picks up her towel and he takes his, and together they pad to the attached bathroom.

He washes his stains off Sonya’s back, then joins her in the shower stall meant for a single person. In the middle of lathering up each other’s skin with soap, he can still feel and hear her soft pleasured exhalations.

What a sensitive, sexy, stimulated little sinner she is.

The two cleanse their bodies and dry off using their respective towels. Herman holds her close as they retreat to his bed. Under the thick blanket, he makes a mental note to fetch a fresh towel from his cupboard tomorrow morning.

For now, he cuddles Sonya, letting her rest her head on his left arm. His right hand curls over her shoulder blades, and her free left arm hugs his body. Their legs can’t exactly interlink equally, but he can curl one leg over her soft thighs.

Through half-lidded eyes, he sees Sonya open her mouth and hesitate. She is struggling to find the right words to express.

“Hush, my dear. Let’s rest,” Herman says softly.

A fuzzy silence surrounds their exterior and their minds. Their breaths slow down, as do their heart rates.

Herman thought he heard Sonya voicelessly lulling herself with “breaking the law” again. But after listening to her words and turning them over in his head, there is no mistaking what she just said.

“I love you, Herman.”

He closes his eyes while thinking of words to answer her with. Before he can find one, the rest of his conscious reality goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bird-brain says “Yes, if we take _this_ as an ending, this is happy and delightful. But the story is incomplete! What kinds of emotions can we throw into the next chapter or two?”  
> My bird-muse is edgy as hell.


	11. Rude Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for physical violence, electrocution, and gun use.

**.....**

_“The human brain is an incredible organ. It takes all the stimuli transported to it via the nervous system, and interprets those signals to make sense of what the person experiences.”_

_What is a ‘person’? What is ‘experience’?_

_What is ‘reality’?_

_That curious child has come a long way. His hard work and well-honed intelligence earned him recognition – and an exclusive opportunity. A chance to scientifically operate beyond the limits of a meek and fearful society. To find out what can change or control a person’s mind._

_There is one mind in particular that Dr Carter has a problem cracking, and that belongs to Patient 0561. He have already deprived her of food, water, and rest – but she will not break. He should have known she is stronger-willed than the average university student._

_He has tested every single of his ECT procedures on her, and she resisted at each turn. He has had it with this pipsqueak._

_“Can’t mention those names, Doc,” Patient 0561 states in what might be a Brooklyn accent. She then continues in TV-presenter American: “But d’you know what I_ can _give you? There is this word that some guy in a suit said is important to keep secret. However, since I like you so much, I’m gonna tell you.”_

_“Is that so?” he demands. He takes the spiked baseball bat from its loop on his belt._

_“Yeah. The word is ‘Entity’.”_

What? _The Doctor’s fingers grip the cloth-wrapped handle._ WHAT?

_How dare she deprive him of the satisfaction of beating the answer out of her!_

_Dr Carter takes out his frustration by smashing the bat against her left cheek. Her neck twists from the impact, and nail-heads trail red scratches along her face… and she has the audacity to raise her head and grin with defiance._

_Her disdainful “Heh” is sickening to his ears. Does she think he is one of those lowly cops trying to get her to admit trivial wrongdoings?_

_The fate she deserves is far worse than what the United States justice system has for her._

_“Now you have the answers, Dr Carter. From now on, I outlive my usefulness.” She turns her face up, looking down her bleeding nose at her interrogator. “What are you gonna do to me,_ nerd _?”_

_The Doctor forces a grin despite his fury. Yes – there was only one way, from the very beginning._

_“I propose one last experiment for you, 0561.”_

_He turns the console dials to the maximum voltage level, at the most constant stimulus, with the highest-amp output the machine is capable of._

_Patient 0561’s bloodstained face smiles in resignation._

Good riddance, you annoying little fool.

_Dr Carter turns the master switch ON. She does not scream even as the currents rip through her nerves and muscles. Her body and limbs thrash against the remaining straps._

_Within minutes, smoke seeps out of her exposed orifices. Static dances in the dry air, and sparks continue to race over her skin even after she ceases moving – after all life leaves her._

_Selfish, greedy 0561. In the end, she got what she wanted: a way out of her pathetic existence._

* * *

Sonya has no idea if Herman caught the last thing she said, but that’s okay. She is now nestled up against the smartest man she has ever met – in his bed. This is an absurd dream if it is one, but it sure is nice.

While Herman is out like a light, Sonya just cannot keep her eyes closed. Of course, maybe it’s because she can’t stop staring at the gorgeous, handsome man.

She warms her fingertips on her partner’s skin and tries to retrace the short-term events up to this point.

Halfway through her scheduled dinnertime, that pasty rat Trent couldn’t stop gawking at her through the peephole. She lost her appetite and sat on her bed, wrapping the blanket around herself in the shape of an egg.

Later Herman approached the wards and got Trent scurrying away. Doc exchanged a few words with Jimmy, who opened the door for Doc. Facehugger Sonya hatched from the egg, and then…

_Oh, shit. I forgot to take my anxiety and depression pills._

Herman’s forehead wrinkles slightly. This close, Sonya can observe that his eyes are moving behind those dark lids. Rapid eye movement. Does that mean he is dreaming already?

The feeling of boots stomping on the floor – noticeably advancing to her and Herman’s location – makes her tense up. She almost completely stops breathing so she can hear what the approaching voices say.

“I don’t understand why Dufort is yelling at us about this,” she recognises Dennis Tillerson’s complaining tone. “If he wanted Carter knocked down a peg or two, he could’ve pulled something on the man by himself.”

She can hear his simple-minded brother Randy Tillerson reply: “Who cares? Carter is a snob who acts like he owns the place. Hell, he already owns that Asian patient.”

Knocking Herman down a few pegs? Here, in the Doctor’s bedroom, at this time of night?

Sonya sits up, clutches on Herman’s shoulders, and tries to shake him awake.

“Herman, get up. Please!”

This is not good. The doorknob rattles; turning the handle does nothing. The guards beat on the door.

She gives Herman a few slaps in the face – soft, and then like she means it – but he still won’t wake up. She thumbs his eyelids open; just as she thought, his eyes are moving erratically.

Sonya hugs his right hand to her hammering chest. Her big man won’t wake, and there are two hired muscle-heads armed with authority and ill intentions coming for him.

_What do I do?_

_‘What would Herman Carter do?’_

She touches his left palm where she has often seen bright, blinding sparks. Then again, though she can feel the static, she cannot use that ability because she is not him.

_Not him… but what if I_ am _him? He has been in my head, among other place– uuugh, Sonya, focus!_

Splinters are falling off the centre of the bedroom door. Her sore legs protest, but she rolls out of bed and snatches up her towel. She wears it around her waist – remember, she is not a lady – and she picks up Herman’s towel to use as a weapon.

Acquired memories of jugular strangulation and nose-obstructing asphyxiation via cloth are enough to convince her: better have a towel in hand than be unarmed.

A heavy boot connected to a long leg tears through the door. A shorter guard shoulders the broken separator, sending it tumbling into the room.

The taller guard, Randy, grins at his stubby brother and gestures at Sonya with his nightstick.

“What did I tell ya? Here’s the untouchable patient herself,” Randy exclaims, and proceeds to ogle her uncovered chest.

“Now’s not the time to get distracted, you idiot,” Dennis replies. Then again, when the shorter Tillerson addresses Sonya, he also has trouble looking her in the eyes.

“Step aside, lady. We’ve got business with your doctor.”

“You can join in with you want,” Randy jokes, his face leery.

While her hands twist the wielded towel into some cylindrical mass, her mouth twists into a diplomatic grin.

“Dufort sent you, is that correct? I must remember to have a word with him about professional conduct in personal disputes.”

The Tillerson brothers glance at each other with confused frowns.

Dennis continues: “Didn’t you hear what we said? Get out of the way unless you want to get beat up like Carter.”

“Oh, I heard what you said,” she speaks in what she hopes lives up to Herman’s cold, smooth understanding. “However, I resent your efforts to damage my vessel in the middle of this experiment.”

“Oh my God.” Randy’s eyes widen, and his voice matches his horrified expression. “Oh God. Dennis, he is inside the girl!”

“I know that, you dumbass!” Dennis yells.

Sonya sneaks a glance at Herman in his bed. His head and hands move slightly, close to tossing and turning. Still, no amount of this noise is breaking him out of sleep.

_Why won’t he wake up?_

“Then, does that make doing this easier? If Carter is in the girl, we can just –”

While Randy was mouthing off, she takes swift and silent steps to him, and whips the twisted towel up his face. She lashes at his neck. He uses his hands to belatedly guard his face, but in the process, he drops his nightstick.

She picks up the new weapon.

A few paces away, Dennis puts away his own stick in favour of his sidearm, pointing it at Sonya. He is authorised to carry one while his brother is not.

“You like experiments, don’t you, Carter? Now I wonder what would happen if –”

Dennis’s mistake is talking and taunting while moving to aim his gun at Herman’s sleeping figure. Sonya keeps herself in the path of the barrel while she sprints towards the guard.

She hears the shot and sees red. She doesn’t even know what she’s yelling as she gives Dennis a right hook to the temple. A left elbow to the nose, and beating his gun-holding hand down.

She sees Randy move in her direction, arms ready to grab her. Her forearms guard her front, and she bellows a primal cry. He plays at keeping her from reaching him, but she drops with one leg launched forward, right in his crotch like he deserved.

Adrenaline on full blast, Sonya stands again and keeps her guard up. It’s hard for a small anarchist to keep two simple men pacified with physical force, but someone has got to do it. Any advances made toward hurting her doctor will be met with corporal punishment.

Just as it was in the police lockup, she’s been waiting to unleash a lifetime of anger. Teachers and authority figures never approved of her violence.

Her thighs are getting cold – it figures, her towel dropped. She glances down to look for it, and… what is that red-looking hole doing on her sternum?

* * *

_Dr Carter phoned the orderlies’ station and told them to remove yet another body. Jimmy Garcia opened the door to the treatment theatre – oh, stop looking so sad, young man. And even after zipping the body bag used to contain the small electrocuted corpse, Bob Corville looked at Carter and shook his head._

_Something is wrong with these people, he thinks to himself. In this line of work, there is absolutely no room for sentiment. No room for emotion._

“Herman, get up. Please!”

_Patient 0561’s voice is haunting me._ He frowns – his body feels frozen in place. His surroundings start to dim. He hears wood splitting. Voices talking.

_Am I dreaming? Which one is the dream?_

Herman fights for control of his body, but still cannot move. Patient 0561 – Sonya – is trying to sound like him. More loud words.

A gunshot. “GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

_Sonya!_

Herman forces his eyes open and pulls as much air as possible into his lungs. He needs to be conscious and alert.

Still feeling numb and hazy – as if this body is not fully his own – he heaves his torso upright. He raises his face and takes in the scene.

Two guards – the Tillerson brothers – in his on-site bedroom. Sonya, naked, maintaining a self-defence stance.

No time to think. Herman channels energy to his left arm and releases the shock. First at Dennis, then the fallen Randy. Sonya hands Herman a nightstick and goes straight to kicking Dennis in the head. He swings the stick down on Randy to make sure the other guard is out as well.

Sonya takes the handcuffs from Dennis’s belt and encloses one end on his wrist. She then drags him to the foot of Herman’s bed and locks the other side around one bedframe leg.

“Sonya.” Herman tries to call her, but even his mouth feels sluggish.

She takes out Randy’s cuffs and proceeds to repeat the procedure on the taller, heavier guard.

“Sonya, talk to me.”

Only after she is finished hiding the cuff keys in the closet did she look up at Herman, eyes brimming with tears. No longer pumped with adrenaline, she teeters towards him and opens her arms as if to hug him.

He grasps her wrists and stops her. “They shot you,” the obvious statement leaves his mouth as he stares at the bullet-sized cavity dripping with blood.

“Dennis was trying to shoot you,” Sonya sobs.

Herman sits her down at the edge of the bed. He picks up his blanket and wraps it over her naked body to keep her warm while she is in shock. Then he gets dressed in a hurry; he needs to go get his tools.

He wanted to speak, but cannot form the words on his physical mouth.

_Sonya, darling, I’m sorry I didn’t get up sooner._

She wipes her eyes with one corner of the blanket. _‘I’m not crying from the wound. I’m crying because – I was so scared of them hurting or killing you.’_

He swallows the lump in his throat and carries her, his arms supporting her shoulders and the undersides of her knees.

_This is the time to be professional, not emotional, Carter!_ he tells himself.

He treads through his broken bedroom door, down the corridor, until the staff resting area ends and the Institute’s work area begins.

He gently places Sonya atop a ready gurney and wheels her in the direction of his treatment theatre. The patient breathes for now, shallow and shaky. Her eyes hold no judgment towards him; if she were Herman, she would not trust the orderlies and nurses either at this point.

_Besides, I’m a doctor, damn it! I should be able to treat a simple gunshot wound to the chest!_

* * *

Herman shoulders the room door open, switches on the lights, and wheels the gurney through. The movable surface will have to serve as an examination table for now.

The console table houses tools for his usual experiments. Next to it, the four-tier trolley should contain medical supplies; he normally kept those nearby, in case a torn-up patient needed mending for further use.

He drops to one knee and rummages through the second tray from the top. No antiseptics or cotton balls there – maybe the bottom tray? He checks that level – there are no medical supplies there either. He checks the top tray to no avail, as well as the second-lowest level.

Why couldn’t he find tools for healing?

“Judas Priest, it sure is fucking foggy in here, huh Herman?”

He forces out a laugh. Lovely Sonya, trying to keep things light-hearted.

He glances at the gurney; she is right about the nearly opaque mist, a portion of which appears to encase her from toe to chest.

_What in the world?_

Herman stumbles to his feet and rushes to his patient’s side. He tries to grab hold of the gurney for support – but he nearly falls, because it was not there.

As if the person he was supposed to treat had never been there at all.

“Sonya?” he hushes out her name.

A yellow-brown spider scuttles up the side of Sonya’s regular treatment chair.

_‘She died, remember?’_ it points out in a sinister voice. _‘You killed her.’_

No, he didn’t. She was just here. He carried and transported her himself.

_‘She is gone.’_

_NO!_

Herman can remember her weight, the softness of her touch. She got hurt trying to protect him.

He rushes back to the supply trolley. He needs to find her, and heal her wound.

_‘Too late for that now, Dr Carter. There’s no point crying over an expired subject.’_

As the spider speaks, he smells acrid smoke… it is not alien to him. But to think Sonya was disposed in the same manner as other simplistic and stubborn patients…

_No! She was different!_

He takes the spiked mallet from the top drawer of his console and strides to the spider – but it disappeared from the treatment chair. Instead, he sees an outline of Sonya in lightning-bright static sparks.

**_“For what it’s worth, I have faith in you, Dr Carter. You’re not like the others. If not for the status quo, you’d be the most intimidating and respected figure in your field.”_ **

Those words – he knows them to be true. He has occasionally revisited the early interview tapes. Those words – and the person who spoke them – were real.

The outline disappears. There is hot moisture on his eyes.

_‘Enough wallowing. You have work to do, Dr Carter. Your research has always been paramount.’_

… That’s right.

The Doctor drops the mallet on the console surface and picks up a pad of sticky notes and the marker beside it. He starts writing, on one sheet after another:

**\- How thoughts and feelings interact  
\- Mind control  
\- Coercion, persuasion… advanced manipulation  
\- Irrationality of internal resistance  
\- Myth of free will**

He pastes those notes on Patient 0561’s former regular chair. She had faith in him, so he will honour her memory by pursuing his quest for knowledge to the fullest.

_‘I want to make you happy.’_

_Dear Sonya, I know not if happiness is still in store for me. But the accomplishment of my work might just be the next closest thing I can attain._

The omelette of knowledge will involve cracking a few subject-eggs. He knows two that are within reach.

He hears hesitant knocks on the laboratory door.

“Dr Carter?” That voice belongs to Bob. “I didn’t know you’re still working this late at night.”

His mouth curls into a smile. Yes… assistance is not essential, but still practical to accept where available. He opens the door and address the helpful orderly.

“Not by choice. It appears Randy and Dennis Tillerson were sent to harass me while I was sleeping. As a matter of discipline, I would like to hear – from their own mouths – which individual issued that order.”

The man’s eyes widen for a second, but he gives a firm and understanding nod. He knows what can happen to people of their colour.

Bob procures two wheelchairs and accompanies Dr Carter to his on-site bedroom. A familiar uniformed silhouette is standing before the broken doorway when they arrive.

“You’re here too, Jimmy. This is perfect!” the Doctor remarks.

The tall guard eyes him, Bob, and the wheelchairs in trepidation.

“Doc – what happened here? Where’s 0561?”

He ignores his second question, and glances at Bob. The orderly nods, and proceeds to fill Jimmy in on what happened. Soon, two competent men are helping transport the subjects of interrogation into Dr Carter’s lab.

“Seriously though, what happened to Sonya?” Jimmy whispers to Bob.

“Hell if I know. But I’m positive these lowlifes did something to her.”

They don’t know _Dr Carter_ killed her. Maybe they don’t remember, but he doesn’t have to worry about that.

He now accepts that she is no longer here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ending was planned to be tragic from the start. As for HOW it was going to be tragic, the ideas changed several times.   
> But wait – there are three more chapters??? Where did I pull these out from?   
> Bird-muse says: “From the depths of your a–”


	12. The Best Medicine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laughter is the best medicine, and Dr Carter self-medicates daily.  
> (I wrote up to Chapter 13 around the time I uploaded Chapter 10. Now it’s just editing.)  
> Content warning for graphic descriptions of torture, grotesque injuries, and self-harm. Also disturbing nightmares and drug use.

**.....**

Sonya knows Herman is always good to her. He takes care of her in terms of body and mind. He is intelligent and attractive. It’s okay if he didn’t like her back. All she wants is for him to be happy…

“Judas Priest, it sure is fucking foggy in here, huh Herman?” she exclaims in her distinct masculine tone.

She hears a brief pained laugh – and then nothing more.

“Herman?” she hushes out. Still no response.

Sonya starts to panic. Even though she knows there is a puncture on her chest, she tries to sit up – but she cannot move. Her wrists, shoulders, forehead, knees and ankles have been strapped down when she wasn’t looking.

_‘Hold still.’_

She obeys and slows her breaths to listen for further words.

She knows that voice. The first time she was truly aware of it was in her final session with Dr Moreau.

“Seeing how unresponsive you are to my ministrations, all I can do now is refer you to a doctor whose methods are far harsher than mine. How about Herman Carter?” Moreau asked her at the time.

The conceited excuse for a psychologist spoke that name at the end in a tone that was supposedly meant to scare her. The same way ghosts, vengeful spirits, and the Devil are used to frighten gullible children into behaving the way parents and other authority figures choose.

Moreau was not the only staff at Léry’s Memorial Institute to have mentioned Carter. In Dr Lundy’s preliminary interview with the problematic Patient 0561, he tried to take a ‘kind’ approach to treating her. Of course, her unrepentant rebellious manner changed his mind, leading him to also use that name as a threat.

_‘Carter is the one they fear the most,’_ the sinister voice told Sonya on that day.

“Oh, yeah? Take me to this Dr Carter’s lab. He can’t be any worse than Dufort or Moreau.”

That voice guided Sonya, nudged her, towards Dr Herman Carter. There turned out to be something special in that doctor’s electroconvulsive treatment: he could see into her mind, and she into his.

Herman Carter values knowledge over all else – more than money, social status, or a living legacy or descendant. He craves information to the point of violence, brutal torture, and the complete deconstruction of sapient beings.

Sonya is no stranger to violence. Inflicted on her by her own mother, by people her age, by criminals and authority figures. As much as she wanted to return the favour, she has too often been restrained from hurting others.

But stopped from harming herself? That was thanks to Dr Carter, because he cared.

**_“No one touches her but the Doctor.”_ **

She smiles. Yeah, no one but the Doctor… Of course, she succeeded in touching herself later, but that was gentle –

She can move her hands!

She is now able to sit up, and – although she is still on the gurney padded by Herman’s blanket, she is not naked anymore.

Airy, loose black shorts – probably silk. A black sleeveless cropped leather top. She doesn’t know where these came from, or how she managed to wear them while she was held still by the invisible creepy being.

She checks her chest – the bullet wound is not there.

_Oh shit. Am I dead?_

_‘No,’_ the sinister voice replies.

She looks around. As usual, the owner of the voice is nowhere to be seen.

_Then am I alive? I don’t feel alive._

_‘No.’_ Yeah, real helpful.

“Devil? Is that you, Lord Satan?” Sonya asks aloud, sliding off the gurney to search around the strangely empty treatment theatre.

_‘Not Satan. ENTITY.’_ … Okay, then.

Her eyes scan the space and still find no living being. “Where’s Dr Carter?”

_‘He still has work to do.’_

She stands in front of her treatment chair, facing the Doctor’s console. “I want to help him.”

_‘You were in the way.’_

Those five words make her knees buckle. She collapses to the cold floor.

_I was in the way? But I helped him too, didn’t I? All I wanted to do was help him!_

_‘He will join you soon. But first, you must prepare this place for him,’_ the Entity replies.

Soon. Prepare. Whatever “this place” is, those earlier words give her some hope at least.

Sonya stands up on bare feet. She wants to assist the Doctor, but in order to do that, she must know how.

A dark brown spider the size of Herman’s hand creeps into her view and raises one of its front legs. She takes it as a signal to follow.

The spider leads her to the stairs that she has often-enough passed by, but almost never climbed. So she steps up to the observation balcony…

Have there always been TV screens hanging over the operating section of the lab? She did not see _those_ when she attended Herman’s appointments.

Focus. Pay attention. The screen shows Jimmy hurrying out of sight, the timid Catholic that he is. Bob gives Dr Carter a polite nod, supportive as always, before departing.

The screen’s view – watching the live treatment theatre from an overhead point – angles toward two hastily set-up operating tables.

Sonya smiles. The Doctor has got those Tillerson fuckers in restraints.

_‘You are now out of the way. The Doctor thinks you’re dead.’_

Her fingers twitch. She longs to crash through the glass to the other side. But the dark god that charted this path already told her she is not supposed to be there.

“Then I’ve gotta help him from this side.” She will need some pen and paper.

_‘He might not remember you by the time he arrives here.’_

Sonya patters down the stairs and along the corridors with light treads. The corridors of this fog-lined Léry’s Memorial Institute are different from those of the building that housed her for at least two months. But there have to be spare office stationery in some of these rooms.

She collects a clipboard, four legal pads, and a fistful of cheap pens before running back to the treatment theatre viewing balcony. She absently wipes her eyes with the back of her writing hand.

Sonya knew – even expected – that she will die forgotten. Even by a person she respects and cares about. She knows it’s going to happen, and it still hurts.

_‘How far will you go to make him remember you?’_

“That depends on what I can be to him.” Sometimes she can be cold to the point that she surprises herself.

But _he_ was the original cool-headed person. The Doctor remained her best teacher.

_I wonder, though… if it were up to me, I would like him to remember me as a useful subject – in the lab, and probably also in bed. Apart from these things, I am fine with him not remembering me._

Sonya scrawls down the nature of Dr Carter’s experiment tonight. She isn’t sure if he is recording the session on tape; it won’t hurt to have additional documentation on the experiment’s procedures and findings.

The Doctor chopped up Randy Tillerson’s limbs and connected wires between the exposed nerve pathways. He switches the current ON, and proceeds to carve down Randy’s outer thigh with a flaying knife.

Visceral, pained screams tear out of the taller guard’s bloodstained mouth. Still watching the screen, Sonya takes note of this peculiar electroconvulsive treatment. A monitor on the bottom left helpfully tells her what settings the Doctor’s machine is on, so she writes that down as well.

_Making physical torture possible even after the recipient was amputated? That’s creative._

On the other table, Dennis has long caved in. For as long as he was awake, he tried to confess that Dufort sent him and his brother to hassle Carter.

“We didn’t even know your patient was there. We’re sorry, we – I didn’t mean to shoot her!”

Being the unemotional scientist that he is, the Doctor responds by fitting a sort of frame over Dennis’s head, not at all minding the little man’s damaged nose. A specialised strap is tightened to hold the patient’s mouth open, making it easier to insert dental pliers – to pull out the molars.

It is insufficient for Dennis to howl in agony through the blood steadily pooling in his mouth. Unable to shut his jaw or turn his head away, his gargled cries continue as the Doctor shoves electrodes in the gum cavities where teeth were formerly rooted.

Sonya flinches slightly at the display and the following shock therapy, but continues to roughly write how the experiment is progressing. What settings are used, what currents make the patients scream the most, and what she presumes the Doctor is learning.

She will not be in Dr Carter’s head for a while, and he won’t be in hers. On this side – where neglecting hunger has less real consequences – she will do her best to keep up with the Doctor’s development. It is a good way to occupy her time before he arrives.

“What else do I have to do?” When there is no spider in sight, she poses the question up at the ceiling.

In time, she learns that the Entity is rather hands-off in having her “prepare this place” for the Doctor. Maybe it’s because she is doing the right things (despite not knowing what she’s doing half the time).

Still, as a person who knows Herman Carter better than most other humans, she is able to pinpoint his desires and what will add to his strengths.

* * *

Torture. Dr Carter preferred when he was the one inflicting it on others. He was even willing to undergo conditions that a normal or average person calls ‘unhealthy’.

But waking up in strange places while barely remembering what he was doing last – this is not mere inconvenience to him. His unscheduled naps are accompanied by nightmares, and he has a hard time trying to forget them.

_Little boy Herman Carter showing no interest in studying brains. He was drawn in, briefly – but he is horrified by what the studies entail._

What an ugly dream. “Next, please.”

Dufort’s body, torn into pieces, is wheeled out of the lab in a body bag. It is midday, and he has not slept in the past 36 hours.

He could stand to catch a few blinks in between sessions, couldn’t he?

_A promising young student’s first day at Yale._

_“You’re in Psychology, too?” A short-statured peer in heavy metal getup holds out their hand, which the taller student shakes. “Call me Sonny. I’m here to understand the way of humans.”_

_The student, so full of potential, decides to waste his chance and follow Sonny down the path of justice, ethics, and moral good._

How hideous, he thinks. He slaps himself awake at his office desk. So weak – smaller hands have slapped him harder, or so his facial skin tells him.

Maybe he needs toothpicks to keep his eyes open…

_A missing person’s report led local police to the farmhouse before Blanchard could reach it._

_“Carter was sloppy. Let him rot in jail,” the words reached the brilliant student’s ears._

_Was his rushed, time-limited work really worth a lifetime of imprisonment?_

In anger, Dr Carter tosses a scalpel blade-first into a patient undergoing supplementary Calm treatment. Experiments and subjects blur into one another, flying by in a haze.

Where are his notes? How much has he covered, and how far does he have yet to go?

_“This was a mistake,” the young woman said._

_The original scientist pinned her against the wall with one hand. He pried open her skull with metal-hard fingernails, exposing the juicy brain._

_“Brilliance is wasted on an over-emotional beast like you,” he proclaimed._

The Doctor opens his mouth wide and sucks in the dry air. Not another dream. Not another irritating episode of sleep paralysis.

He needs… he needs more stimulants. Caffeine, amphetamines, epinephrine. Anything to keep those unnecessary visions out. When they play in his mind, they look real, feel real.

_The entrance area of the Institute converted into a mock court. Director Stamper plays judge, and Dr Moreau the smug prosecutor._

_“Herman Carter is thereby found guilty of treason. He will be stripped of his title and be assigned the Patient number 0155.”_

_Confined in his cell and bound by a straitjacket, he can do nothing as the boyish-sounding patient in the opposite ward fights off the harassing guards. There was a gunshot._

Yes! He managed to trap the so-called doctor, alter his appearance, and present him to the rest of the Institute as a fresh patient. This is what Moreau deserves for trying to ruin Dr Carter’s work.

It is pointless to fear any further consequences. He will make sure the imbeciles in this building do not interfere with his pursuit of knowledge – of pure power. They can run, but they can’t tell. To tell would be to admit they were complicit in gruesome, inhumane acts. If he goes down, they will go down with him.

* * *

Dr Carter’s ECT headpiece consists no longer of just wires, electrode tips, and a headband. They now have metal rods to hold his eyes open – no sleep, just work. Tight straps catch the corners of his mouth – he has to maintain that professional smile, no matter how people react to his appearance and manner.

He can only vaguely distinguish the names of non-patients these days. He barely realises that Jimmy Garcia and Bob Corville have transferred out of Léry’s… He cannot remember their reasons, even assuming he heard what they were. Not that he cared, but he understands. This is a high-pressure work environment.

On the other hand, he can recall vivid details of the experiments he conducted on not just Dufort, Moreau, and Trent. Even Lundy and Goldfarb.

Fuelled by electricity and caffeine, Dr Carter keeps smiling and carries out his work with passion and pride. This is his purpose in life, the only meaning he has left. He learns to laugh at the nightmares. Laugh away the pain and suffering, the guilt and loneliness.

When the useless emotions dissipate, his laughter is what remains.

The orderlies and administrative staff dare not deny his requisition orders for new electrical components. Connecting electrodes to his scalp and using live currents from his machines are far from enough.

He must be able to adjust wavelengths and currents at the speed of thought, straight from the top of his head. The spark – powered by his heart for a while now – needs to travel more directly from him to the nerves and muscles of his patients.

He tears out his own skin, punches holes through flesh. That will make room for wires and capacitors, for specialised little circuits to be powered by his inexhaustible spark.

In the middle of this work, he gets frustrated and rips the sleeves off his medical coat. He supposes he can still retain some semblance of a professional appearance, but pragmatism is his ultimate priority.

After about a week of much-needed silence around the Institute, he finishes his personal upgrades and goes down to his office. He is his own best equipment.

* * *

Dr Carter grins with barely-felt satisfaction as he oversees the former Dr Blackpoole on the TV screen atop his office desk. The man sits restrained in Carter’s lab, unable to turn away or cover his eyes from the screens overhead. Those portray mostly static, intermittently showing scenes of death, violent chaos, and other various forms of destruction, torture, or harm.

The Doctor used to play cassettes of hard and heavy music in the background, but he found them to be too structured. So he distorted those tapes or added in layers of previous patients’ recorded screams. Underneath the tracks, he used his good old subliminal frequency loop, which very few people appreciated.

The patient’s treatment currently incorporates sights and sounds. In terms of feeling, Blackpoole is already undergoing experimental Obedience therapy. The Doctor supposes the treatment theatre could be colder, but he has already opened all the windows in the building.

_Oh well. Shall I raise the current instead? Change the wavelength depth?_

Three knocks at the office door. Director Otto Stamper enters, attempting a guise of formality despite the obvious fear he exudes.

“Dr Carter – there’s something we need to discuss.”

The Doctor tries to tune him out, but his words are louder than the static and whispers that kept him company. So he faces his former mentor with what may pass for a frown.

Stamper steps back at the sight of Dr Carter’s eyes flaring lightning-bright. The Director normally looked placid, but he has been jittery in recent weeks.

“It’s not that the CIA doesn’t value your discoveries – believe me, they would be amazed by what you’ve accomplished. But as of late, your methods may have been – a little extreme. They may even close down the Institute if they find out about your recent experiments.”

Dr Carter can already predict what the pencil-pusher is about to say: that Carter is going too far, and if Carter won’t stop, he will have to seek aid from his superiors to end this madness.

But the Doctor does not answer to Stamper anymore. He takes out his silver-plated pocket watch and opens the case. “You have ten seconds.”

“Excuse me?”

“To retract that statement.”

Dr Carter pushes his chair back and rises to his full height. The seconds count down. Stamper chooses to try reasoning with the Doctor; even if he ran away instead, he wouldn’t have been able to escape.

This is Stamper’s punishment for hindering Doctor Carter, for getting in the way of the Doctor’s fulfilment of a higher being’s orders.

_‘They don’t live by their own rules. Why should you?’_

* * *

**OUTTAKE: Arcus 561**

A young-looking researcher easily identifies the Entity’s specially-kept books and folders. Those readable items have unnaturally smooth covers that occasionally feel alive, pulsating with heartbeats, or crawling to the touch as if minute life-forms below the covers are disturbed.

The researcher appears every bit a Survivor, mentally and emotionally affected by the Fog – by the Entity that uses it. As expected, she pores over Benedict Baker’s journal entries and categorises the information for her own use… or so I thought.

She seems aware of the distinction between three Léry’s: the ‘living’ Institute, the one that she stays in, and the space that the Entity plans to turn into a Trials map. Is she… preparing the area for a Killer that is not yet here? Now, I have watched cults worshipping the Entity, but it chills me to see this barefooted scholar directly and actively providing labour to the Old One.

For an intelligent being who identifies songs by their first beats and chords, the researcher can be clumsy – and not in an endearing way. When she was setting up a meat hook in the Trials theatre, she jumped up to test the extent of the hook swing. In the process, she accidentally cut herself from palm to mid-forearm, cursed, and just wiped the blood on her silk shorts. If she _is_ a Survivor, then she has awful self-preservation instincts.

On a different occasion, I see the researcher watching the multitude of screens above the Treatment Theatre. She diligently takes notes while the Doctor restrains and tortures his former colleagues. From the way she sets up her ‘study perch’, she is likely accustomed to writing rough notes to ‘neatify’ and arrange later.

What alarms me most about the researcher is her eyes. In them I see love and hope: lively feelings described in four-letter words. Those emotions feed the Entity and give the Old One more energy to corrupt everything in its vicinity. So – the dark god has found a power source attached to a twisted servant. There is no telling when the Entity will use her to trap me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Observer didn’t know what bird-muse knows: Sonya is a subject of the Entity’s experiment – what happens if a person who keeps claiming they can kill is never afforded the opportunity to kill a living being by their own hands.
> 
> A less serious outtake:
> 
> Doctor: “Sonya is GNC as fuck”  
> Observer: “You’re insane!”


	13. Carter's Spark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for torture and gore.  
> This was a tricky chapter to write. I ended up scrapping plenty of paragraphs and restarting from particular points until I’m satisfied enough with the flow.  
> The main story ends here; Chapter 14 will involve Campfire introduction, interactions, and additional fluff.  
> I also have a [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1DY2WOg0LdJhowIDqt9R5h?si=GMwcuh7dT9uFxxDlN55Phg) for this series (it’s an ongoing work in progress though).

**.....**

**… It was only after the Léry’s Memorial Institute went silent for a week that they finally uncovered the true horror of what had happened there.**

**Carter’s experimental information extraction had turned to horrific and bizarre torture. Patients and prisoners were found dead or in vegetative states with all types of head trauma. In his office, they found the most terrible discovery of all. Mr Stamper himself, his head peeled open and an array of electrodes and sensors inserted into his still working, but annihilated brain. There was no sign of Herman “The Doctor” Carter, but his research papers suggested that he had been using the prisoners as part of awful ECT experiments as he searched for the panacea of mind control.**

**The government didn't want to know. The black site was condemned and all knowledge of the Léry’s Memorial Institute redacted forever.**

* * *

Otto Stamper’s brain was a sad specimen. As the CIA’s administrator in charge of this site, one would have expected him to have cold resolve – dedicated to the pursuit of a goal, no matter how atrocious the means.

Stamper was a typical fragile human after all, not difficult to reprogram. Doctor Carter’s former enabler ended up robbing him of entertainment. The Institute director was boring, unlike… who was it that could manipulate Carter’s Restraint therapy? Did such an individual ever exist?

Oh well. The Doctor is not surprised if this is one of those cases where the student has surpassed the mentor.

He pokes a live electrode on Stamper’s exposed right parietal lobe. Barely any sound escapes the patient’s dry throat. Pathetic. He needs more pain reception.

 _Is my spark not enough?_ No, it must be the electrode tip. It got mouldy from exposure to this climate.

The Doctor strides out of his office in the direction of his lab. All the corridors are deserted now, save for rodents, crows, and that ever-present dark mist. Moss, lichen, and even grass grow in the abandoned structure. Trolleys, wheelchairs, and other objects line the passageways in seeming disarray, but at times they act as landmarks – every bit as helpful as the flickering signs overhead.

The double doors that divided the corridor from Dr Carter’s treatment theatre no longer exist. Their removal not only helped to ease access between the office and his preferred workplace, but also allowed cold misty air to cure his former patients of complacency.

Bending over the supply trolley, he pulls out the topmost tray and finds… True enough, high-stimulus electrodes. Although, for some reason, these are neatly separated from the polished and mouldy varieties.

After retrieving the set of electrode ends he needed, he inspects the trolley’s other levels. The top two have electrical and medical tools respectively, their positions and functions clearly labelled on the surfaces of the interior. The bottom tray is jammed shut, but the second-lowest contains well-organised stacks of office supplies and blank cassette tapes.

Was there another living human in the building? He has to find them before they can meddle with what’s in his office.

The dread as the Doctor returns transforms into boiling anger. Stamper has indeed disappeared, but something is not right; here his anger turns into confusion.

First: the surface of the office desk is too clean, as if no patient was bound and peeled there in the first place. Second: the little TV on that desk appears to be tuned in to a channel dedicated solely to music.

Sound comes from other than the TV as well. He traces it to a small figure in black clothes, faced away from him, singing and dancing lightly while visually browsing his overflowing shelves.

The Doctor charges up his shock and directs it at them.

“Yiiii!” they scream; they might have jumped if the electricity had not tightened their muscles.

He laughs aloud at that funny-sounding reaction. It’s been a while since he encountered someone amusing.

The person with yellow-brown skin and unevenly-chopped black hair turns around. He was ready to delight in the young woman’s terror when she sees his face. However, the reaction she gave him is not to his satisfaction. Surprise that parts her shapely lips, yes. Disbelief is present in her uncertain stance. But there is no fear at all in her soft dark brown eyes – filled instead with yearning and questions.

“Doctor Carter.”

So she knows who he is. Yet he cannot fathom the depth of emotion in her quivering voice or moistening eyes. Or the absence of her fear towards him.

In fact, she even goes as far as reaching for him with a tiny hand – before using the other to hold herself back.

_How dare she try to touch me!_

The Doctor charges another shock and fires it at her. This time she does not scream, but curls up, drops to her knees, and gasps for air.

“Judas Priest… this is real.” She meets his eyes again, studying him intently through her tears. “You are the real Dr Herman Carter.”

There is undeniable reverence in her voice. He supposes she admires him, as anyone should, but then how did she come to know of the infamous Doctor?

“I don’t believe we’ve met. What is your name?” he asks, the headpiece holding his mouth in a smile he does not feel.

The young woman pushes herself off the floor and wipes her face with the back of one hand. After taking a few more calming breaths, she stands firm and partly holds her right hand out as if he was supposed to shake it.

“Patient 0561: Sonya Nourn. Arrested for arson and property damage, sent to Léry’s when found unwilling to give up names of so-called anarchist comrades.”

He searches his immediate memories and comes up blank. She could be lying about being a patient here…

“Didn’t ring any bells?” She forces out laughter and drops her hand. “Well then. I personally don’t want to break your brain after what it’s been through. But when desperate, limits gotta be breached.”

Break his brain? What is she talking about?

She switches off the TV and gives the Doctor a brief glance. “I learned that from you.”

When she moves to open the middle drawer on his office desk, he takes out his spiked mallet and points its business end to her throat.

Her body halts, but her face splits into a wry smile. “Really? After all the time I spent neatening the treatment notes, and arranging the patient files by termination date?”

All the same, she raises her hands palm-forward and backs away.

He pulls out the P0561 file from that drawer. It contains her arrest report and typewritten notes signed by doctors Dufort and Moreau – oh, he perfectly recalls _their_ evisceration and torture before their deaths.

Then pages of reports by Dr H Carter. Further instructions. Brief scrawled sticky notes, barely legible. Transcripts of use of ‘Sonya’ in interrogating other patients. Her ability to manipulate Restraint treatments…

At the end of the file, 0561’s last known use was dated November 1982. The only document subsequent to that is a form signed to officiate change in status.

**Patient 0561 Status: TERMINATED  
Disposal Method: [DATA EXPUNGED]**

The notion of Patient 0561’s existence is slowly returning to him, but he cannot remember how she died.

“I didn’t actually die – that’s the thing,” the little lady speaks up.

He looks up from the file to the patient. His mouth may be open, but he had not spoken out loud.

_Did she hear my thoughts? Or did the Entity prompt her with a hint?_

“It’s been months, I guess, and I haven’t received ECT shocks in that long. That’s why I’m slightly rusty.”

 _Rusty at what? Hearing words in other people’s minds? But_ I _should be the one entering people’s heads!_

“Restraint Class II. That’s when we really connected.” The smile reaches her eyes when she says the last three words.

The pulse of his innate spark picks up speed. What is she saying? And why is his body reacting this way to her? He does not remember feeling this confused – but as always, he scoffs at his own internal discomfort.

Nothing will disarm him when there are no emotions to pull him under.

He finds a yellow folder labelled ‘R-II’ in the top drawer. He recognises his handwriting on the original sheets, but there are a few pages added in. A copy written in the hand of someone who expended effort to make the words readable. Annotations of playful exclamations and obscure references.

A sticky note that reads: **“Not gonna do it to myself. I’ll wait for him.”**

He puts the folder and its contents on the office desk. _Waiting for me?_

Well, he’ll find out what she remembers, and why she’s willing to wait for him. Why she is in the Entity’s presence in the first place.

The Doctor adjusts the output of his spark to the wavelength he perfected, and charges the energy toward his left arm. Patient 0561 looks expectant. She shuts her eyes when his left hand closes over her crown.

He releases the shock.

His mind’s eye witnesses a university in cold weather. Fake punk boys. Throwing Molotov cocktails at a bank in a ‘nice neighbourhood’. Arrest. Dufort and Moreau in their respective labs. Lundy’s threat.

Dr Herman Carter from a different life. A bedroom in a suburban house.

**_“No one touches her but the Doctor.”_ **

The viewer nonchalant about their skin bleeding; an interrogation subject tearing his own mouth open to give the information. In a different patient’s mindscape, the Demon Girl cackles at the misogynist’s easy-to-achieve suffering.

Taking a bullet in the chest and continuing to charge into violence. The still-human Dr Carter bringing the viewer to a lab dense with mist. Lonely weeks of watching monitors, writing notes, organising items, and ranting with indignation when a music tape was essentially destroyed.

 _‘Here we are, Dr Carter,’_ Sonya’s mind whispers to him.

Something is still missing. Why was she attacked? Why did his former self attempt to treat her wound?

 _What are you hiding from me?_ he demands.

His physical eyes see that Sonya’s are closed. Her expression is reticent.

Sadistic, gleeful urge – beyond morbid curiosity – rises within Doctor Carter. The fool should have been aware that information extraction is his specialty.

 _‘Yes, Doctor,’_ the Entity’s voice urges. _‘Take her emotions. Her love, her rage, and all of her sorrow.’_

He delivers another charge of shock therapy.

Hungry eyes trained on impassive yet symmetrical features. Admiration at tasteful workwear over a healthy scientist’s body. Interlinked hands of different sizes. Thirsty daydreams, little searches for satisfaction by one’s own fingers.

**_“Can I poke your beefy arm?”_ **

Played-up laughter at the possibility that the Doctor was listening for something so vulgar. A fantasy of wearing one’s own lab coat, flirtatiously pulling at the handsome doctor’s tie. A chess game, the Doctor proposing an experiment.

And despite all worries and doubts, passion in the Doctor’s on-site bedroom.

* * *

… What a delicious experiment that had been.

**_“I love you, Herman.”_ **

He stumbles back and gasps; those four words hit him with the same magnitude as the Entity’s claws breaking through his muscles and bones.

Sonya collapses to the floor of his office, arms crossed over her chest and legs pressed together, sweating far too much in a cold place like this.

He takes the support rods out from his eyes and loosens the mouth-straps of his ECT headgear. For the first time in weeks – probably months – he pulls the detachable parts of the modified headpiece off, and sets it on his office desk.

 _Patient 0561 - Sonya._ That identity occupies his brain once more. _My only peer in this unsatisfying place._

 _‘I love you, Herman,’_ the real and present Sonya repeats those words as she tries to sit up. _‘I know, it’s embarrassing. I’ve seen who you were as a student, and then as a Project Awakening key member. I watched the events that made you the Doctor who now works for the Entity.’_

She now stands, leaning against one bookcase for support.

She watched him. Not to use or judge him. To – admire him, the way her eyes do now?

“And I still love you,” she says, as if to put to rest any more questions he has of her perception.

To be perfectly honest, he does have an open-ended experiment to conduct on someone who openly and wholeheartedly admires him.

He meets those dark brown eyes of hers. Still very much human, unlike his electric irises.

“I don’t need you.” His lips pull into a natural smile that also crinkles the corners of his eyes. “I haven’t needed you in a long time.”

She shifts her weight to her sock-wearing feet. Her arms hang loosely by her sides while she gives him a scrutinising gaze.

“I respect the Entity’s decision to keep you around. However, I have doubts about your value in my current and future work.”

Sonya blinks a few times. She then huffs out a short laugh, smiling wryly.

“Doctor Herman Carter,” she takes a lecturing tone, “you know that for a lie to work, the listening patient must not already know or trust the truth that it hides, right?”

She takes his left hand and jams the palm in her face. The sharp spark travels from his heart to the patient’s, seemingly beyond his command.

… he thinks about the care instructions he gave at the end of Patient 0561’s first appointment with him. He wanted her for himself, even back then… but not simply for tonight’s purpose, no.

A gunshot. **“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”**

_‘She is gone.’_

_NO! She was different!_

_“I have faith in you, Dr Carter.”_

Taking amphetamines with his coffee. Shooting epinephrine into his veins. Getting pestered by Mr Stamper to write an official statement on how Patient 0561’s use came to an end. Unsteady fingers around a drying fountain pen.

The Institute director was boring, unlike… who was it that could manipulate Carter’s Restraint therapy? Did such an individual ever exist?

_If so, that had been an entertaining subject. I have not even tested the limits of their potential. Oh well…_

Herman Carter’s physical eyes open.

Sonya lets go and allows his left hand to fall. She is done crying, and now has a little tired smile.

“Well, Doctor, this game has been fun, but I’d like to take a break. I’m not an adreno-head like you,” she tells him, and goes to make sure the folders are back in respective parts of their drawers. She has been busy establishing order in his absence.

_‘Besides, I’m not wimpy enough that I’d stay awake just to avoid having some vivid-ass disturbing nightmares.’_

Oh, Herman definitely heard that.

After Sonya closes the drawers securely, he shoves her body front-first onto the table surface. Her brief pained yelp closely resembles her reaction to being zapped by routine Order treatments.

That sound is always a delight to his ears.

“Ow. For the record, I did _not_ intend for you to hear that.”

He chuckles as he brings her forearms together against her lower back. His right thumb and fingers are large enough to encircle both of her wrists.

“One would think you have learned by now: there is nothing you can hide from me, dear.”

To back up his statement, he tugs at the elastic waistband of Sonya’s silk shorts and slides his hand down. Yet while he originally sets out to prove that her underwear is wet, he soon realises she is _not_ wearing any underwear.

“How are you not freezing to death here?”

“Hah. Speak for yourself, Dr Sleeveless.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even prior to Anon’s comment on Chapter 10, I thought about how Sonya would fit into the Entity’s realm, lore-wise. She is neither Survivor (too twisted) nor Killer (not evil enough). So, apart from being a catalyst with interesting effects on the Doctor, what are her other uses to the Entity?  
> I think about Benedict Baker; his notes indicate that he provided a manual of the Trials for future survivors. Vigo extensively studied the Entity and may have been a survivor at some point in his life, capable of going into the Void and back. The Observer collects memories and stories using the Auris, and hides from the Entity.
> 
> Two survivor-sided humans, another one supposedly neutral yet essentially surviving against the Entity and trying to escape the Fog. Therefore Sonya, playing for the Entity as a person capable of prying out truths (or push people to the edge) when given the right tools, can probably become an archivist of violence and brutality.  
> … I don’t know, maybe I’m overthinking an excuse for an original character (whom is a modified self-insert) to be part of more than one fanfic. Still, I hinted in previous chapters that Sonya is autistic and wishes to “understand the way of humans”.
> 
> Anyway. I haven’t even drafted Chapter 14 yet, but that can of course wait until after my March 2nd exam.


End file.
